WTLK LIVE TALK RADIO
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
“If you’re just joining us, folks, it has become a wild, wild night in western Pennsylvania. There are unconfirmed reports of military activity in the vicinity of Stebbins County. That is correct, you heard me when I said it. Military activity. So, what does the Finke think about that? Well, we know that the National Guard is on call for flood control and disaster aid, and FEMA has also announced its presence. The president of the United States made a rather vague statement earlier in which he talked about natural disasters and cyber-terrorism. Every word of that speech has already been dissected by the brain trusts on MSNBC and FOX, both of whom need a GPS and Sherpas to find a clue. FOX is talking about zombies. MSNBC is spouting some socialist claptrap about military helicopters firing at a school in order to stifle the live broadcasts of some whack job who claims to be reporting live from the apocalypse … and unfortunately that whack job is a longtime friend of the show, Billy Trout of Regional Satellite News. We tried to contact Billy to get him to tell us his side of the story—or to find out what he’s smoking—but it looks like Superstorm Zelda has knocked out more than the lights. There’s no cell reception at all in or out of Stebbins County and large parts of Fayette County.”
Gavin paused to light a cigarette.
“So, again you ask me, what does the Finke think?”
He laughed.
“For once, my friends, the ol’ Gav has to admit that I don’t have a clue. Not tonight. This one has me stumped. So, help Uncle Gavin out and call in to tell me what you think is happening on this dark and stormy night.”
Once more all the call lights lit up.
Gavin Finke took a long drag, blew smoke into the air, and took the next call.
CHAPTER FIFTY
THE SITUATION ROOM
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
“How bad is it?”
The president fired the question off as he hurried into the Situation Room. It was the tenth time he’d asked the question, but so far no one had been able to give him a definitive answer. Even now each of the faces that looked up from the table gave mixed signals—doubt, anger, frustration, determination, and naked fear.
“Sir,” said Scott Blair as he came to intercept the president, “here’s what we know. The—”
“I was told there was an attack on one of our checkpoints.”
“There was,” said Blair, “and we lost a soldier, but the other man on that post eliminated the infected and, ah, resolved the resulting infection.”
It took the president a beat to understand what that meant. He blanched. “Jesus Christ.”
“The checkpoint has been reinforced and all checkpoints are on high alert,” said Blair, but he was shaking his head as he said it. “The problem, however, is elsewhere.”
A map of Stebbins County filled one window on the big plasma screen. A red dot glowed beside one of the major highways.
“There was an attack at a Starbucks on Route 653.”
“How many casualties?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Blair.
“How the Christ can it not—?”
“Sir, the victims of that attack were able to leave the Starbucks and they wandered into traffic. Their presence resulted in multicar pileups. Both directions.” Blair pointed to a second screen, which showed an aerial view of a terrible traffic accident and what appeared to be a riot. Helicopter spotlights ranged over the crumpled wrecks of dozens of cars and trucks. Bodies lay in the road, some of them clearly crushed under or between the vehicles. The president walked numbly over to the screen to study the scene more closely. The pileups completely blocked the highway in both directions and even spilled over into the Starbucks parking lot, which was positioned on a wide spot in the median. Behind the roadblocks, lines of cars stretched for miles in bumper-to-bumper traffic, headlights on, windshield wipers slashing back and forth. And everywhere—everywhere—running between the cars, crawling over the wrecks, moving along the lines of stopped cars, filling the median, were people.
Fighting.
Struggling.
Rolling over and over in the mud or on the slick streets.
Punching and kicking.
Biting.