2222; Chapter Eleven: Severed Ties
Elysee Palace, France
“President Quessman, will we be sending aid to the Americas? Our troops grow restless with every passing day.” Andre didn’t bother to knock as he entered the French president’s chambers.
Quessman’s haughty arrogance was gone. He was slumped over at his desk, muttering to himself like a crazed mathematician trying to solve an impossible problem.
“If we were to go to war… they would destroy us…”
“Sir?”
Antoine looked up.
“I’ve received a communication from their general, some man named Phil. It seems as though he’s in charge more so than the president, these days.”
“And?”
“And, in sloppy French, he has threatened war if we send even one French soldier onto their soil.”
“What? But that’s—”
“Ludicrous, I know. They are too proud, or too foolish, to accept our aid.”
“We have to do something. They’ll die.”
“We can do nothing. If we make a move, they will destroy us, even in their weakened state.”
“But if we don’t offer our help, we have no leverage in future conflicts!”
“My hands are tied here, Andre. We can do nothing. We can only wait and see how they fare on their own.”
Andre massaged his temples. A throbbing ache was building in his skull, threatening to break out of his head altogether.
War? Has the U.S. lost their minds?
President Quessman seemed like he was on the verge of losing his mind altogether. He’d gone back to his muttering, running strategies under his breath.
Fucking Americans, they’ve backed us into a corner.
What can we do? If we do nothing, we run the risk of jeopardizing future alliances. If we attack, though, we’ll end up fighting a losing war. There’s no way to win.
“Sacre bleu,” Andre cursed. “They’ve backed us into a corner.”
He sighed, and left the president to his muttering.
America was on its own.
****
When the queen of an ant colony dies, the colony will eventually die off. Without a leader, they cannot reproduce. They have no structure. They have no duty. They have no growth.
But in modern human society, when the leader of a country dies, they are merely replaced. Society keeps growing. They live, they die, and new humans take their place.
When Phil’s head was blown off, the zombies under his control were thrown into chaos. Without a leader, they didn’t know or remember who they were.
But they had tasted freedom, and freedom is addicting. They were not eager to be in chains again. And so when Margo became the new de facto leader, even from a distance and even if she wasn’t aware, the undead were not willing to let go of their newfound freedom. The dictatorship had become a democracy.
The dead were making the choices now. As a united whole, no longer as brainless followers. The people were leading, if you could still call them that.
And from the shadows, he watched the undead rising. He felt a kinship with them. He considered himself one of them. He’d never belonged with the living. The dead gave him more comfort than any living person ever had. That’s why he was here, in the new zombie headquarters.
He called himself Charon, the ferryman of the dead, but that was merely a nickname, an alias. His real name was Charles Goodwell. Before the accident, he’d been a successful businessman, a wife, two kids. But afterwards…
Now, he was a freak. An outcast.
But now? In this new world? He could be something more. He could be a bridge. A connection between two different worlds.
But first… he would have to find this “Margo.”
After all, it’s impossible to be a diplomat if you don’t have connections.
“Who are you… Margo?” he asked, to no one in particular. “Are you living? Dead? Whose side are you on?”
He would get his answer soon enough.
****
Jules waited for the door to open.
He wondered, should he knock again? Would that help at all?
Should he keep moving? Try another door?
A soft grunt took his attention away from the doorframe.
Margo had sunk to the floor.
“Margo? Margo!”
Margo began talking, in some unintelligible language. It could have been ancient, or maybe it was some new zombie dialect. Whatever it was, it made no sense to Jules.
“Margo, what are you—”
Then she lunged.
Jules recoiled in shock, too stunned to raise a gun or fight back, but she didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in him.
She merely snarled and took off running deeper into the facility, like a predator searching for prey… or maybe pretend running from a predator.
“Shit,” Jules spat. “Shit.”
“Um… you knocked?”
It was Lizzie.
Jules spins around, panting hard.
“Um… hi,” he says. “My zombie friend just went psycho and ran off, but… we’re here to get you out. You, Dale, and Brad. Clint and the other are—”
“Brad is dead. And Dale is in no position to be moving around right now. What’s going on? Where’s Phil? Why were there gunshots?”
“Hold on, Ms. Harlem. He’s not an Oracle, he doesn’t have all the answers.”
“Well, actually… I might have most of them. Margo has the rest, but she’s… well, she ran off. So I’ll do the best I can, but you’ll need to walk while you do it.”
“Like I said, Mr. Caruthers is in no condition—”
Dale grunts.
“Eh, I’ll be fine, Lady Lizzie. Just make sure you hold me tight.”
“Enough flirting,” Jules says with a slight grin. His grin quickly fades. “Let’s trade stories while we walk, okay? I want to know exactly what happened to Brad.”
Lizzie sighs.
“Here goes nothing.”
****
Clint had about two minutes and six seconds to celebrate. That was how long it took the zombies to stand back up. Although Phil was not there to control them, they were still just as bloodthirsty as they’d been before.
“The gun’s jammed, damn thing,” Clint swears, swinging the shotgun like a baseball bat. A shot rings out, loud as a scream, and it takes him a moment to realize that his jammed shotgun had suddenly come unstuck, leaving him with ringing ears and a splitting headache.
“Fuck,” he says, but he can barely hear his own voice. The zombies keep coming.
Then Margo bursts through the doors, shrieking like a banshee.
Saved, Clint thinks. But when he looks into her eyes, he doesn’t see the Margo he knows. He sees an animal. Margo… is gone.
But maybe, in a twisted way, she does save them. Leading the way like a dog that’s caught a scent, Margo sprints away, and the zombies follow. She might not be sane anymore, but she’s still a leader. And wherever she goes, they go.
Clint stares after her, in shock. It takes a moment for the present to catch up to him.
“Clint!”
In a whoosh, his hearing returns.
“Jules…” Clint says. He turns to his friend, his partner, his coworker. There’s a beat of total silence.
Then Clint drops his gun, sinks to the floor, and sobs.
“Clint, I’m sorry, but we need to go.”
“Everything’s gone, Jules…”
“But you’re not gone, Clint. You’re alive, and you’re surviving. The real Margo, not that thing out there; she would want you to continue.”
“Those are cheap words, Jules,” Clint whispers through his sobs.
“Sorry I can’t afford anything nicer,” Jules snaps. This is the apocalypse, after all.”
Despite himself, Clint smiles.
He would continue onward. For his sons. For his unknown daughter. For Margo. For Phil, even if he’d lost his way at the end. And…
“Where’s Brad?” Clint asks.
The silence tells him all he needs to know. He gets to his feet.
And for Brad, too. Everyone we’ve lost.
I’ll keep moving.