Medora Wars Read online

  Elise smiled and looked out over the crowd as she gave a small wave, then made her way to the podium. Breathing deeply, she opened up a manila folder containing her speech and cleared her throat. “Queridos amigos de los Estados Unidos, me alegra mucho estar aquí con ustedes.” She felt her nerves cool as she finally realized that she had given hundreds of speeches in her career, and that this one would be no different. “Me gustaría…” she slowly trailed off as a small stir in the crowd outside the building moved quickly in a frenzy. “Es…” she attempted again when several people from the outside crowd pounded on the glass.

  Turning to Gamez, she looked for some reassurance, and was about to speak up when a thunderous explosion of glass broke out at the entrance to the mall. Instinctively ducking, Elise looked over and saw that a white delivery van had crashed through the entrance doors of the building, knocking over metal door frames, and spewing people from the crowd forward into the building. The van had slowed in speed from the impact and sped out slightly on the wreckage of bodies and broken glass, but then gained traction, and moved forward through the low clearance of the mall entrance into the opening foyer.

  “Bájense!” Sheffield yelled as he rushed up the steps of the stage. Another voice shot out in Spanish from a group of policemen, who drew their guns, and moved to the back of the crowd where the van approached.

  Elise shuffled on her hands and knees toward the end of the stage, while Sheffield ran over to her and escorted her off the back to the floor below. Looking back, she saw the van approaching the crowd of reporters, with a second van coming into the same destroyed entrance.

  “What’s going on?” She looked up at Sheffield, who now had his gun drawn and pointed at the approaching van.

  “Just stay down, exactly where you are,” he shouted without looking down at her. The entire staged cleared of all people, including Gamez, who had flipped off her high heels and ran off and down a hallway of shops.

  The second van sped up and was almost touching the front van’s bumper as the two drove in, winding around the elevator banks, and approaching the crowd of reporters that was now scattering in a flash of panic. Two policemen ran past the crowd and toward the first approaching van, their guns pointed at the windshield. They stopped and stood side by side as the vans slowed.

  “Párense o tiramos!” one of the officers shouted, lifting his gun.

  After a momentary pause in speed, the two vans synchronously sped up and drove straight at the two policemen, who dove out of the way, while the front bumper of the van clipped one of them on the hip, making him topple over and cry out in pain. The vans continued forward, crashing into the folding chairs that had now been emptied by the fleeing reporters, and stopped a few dozen feet from the front of the stage. Most of the crowd had scattered, dozens finding refuge in nearby shops and stairwells.

  “Are we going to run?” Elise asked, looking up at Sheffield.

  “No, not yet, the exits may all be blocked. Just lie flat on the ground and don’t make a noise,” Sheffield whispered, standing behind the stage. He waited for a moment while the vans set in silence. Black tinted windshields prevented any possible view into the front seat.

  “Okay, let’s move,” he said to Elise, while bending down to help her up.

  As she rose to her knees, loud shots of gunfire came from the front entrance, where the two vans had earlier busted through. With her pulse racing, she flattened out again.

  Looking back up, Sheffield saw a large crowd come streaming into the entrance of the mall, as more bursts of gunfire rang out from the same direction. It was the same crowd of eager shoppers that were earlier lining up at the doors. The gunfire continued, and even more people stumbled in, panicked and crying, until the entire end of the building was flooded with people. As the encroaching crowd came past the elevator banks, the two front doors of both white vans opened in unison. Four identically dressed men in Army fatigues, black vests, and helmets exited holding automatic rifles. They moved swiftly to take cover behind each van.

  “Drop the guns!” Sheffield yelled out.

  No response came from the armed men, who leaned against the back doors of the vans, waiting. The mass of people from outside was continually moving toward the stage, driven by the constant firing of rifles outside.

  Sheffield looked out amongst the crowd and got glimpses of several other men in Army fatigues now running into the mall behind the panicked crowd, firing rifles into the air. From underneath the stage, Sheffield heard Elise’s voice.

  “James? What is going on? Are people being shot?” She kept her body flat on the cool tile.

  “It’s hard to see, but I think they’re getting the crowd to come in the building by firing into the air. I can’t tell if anyone has been shot yet,” he whispered.

  Elise somehow felt calmer now than at the prospect of giving a speech in front a small crowd of reporters earlier. Through even breaths she looked from beneath the stage and only saw a slit of light shining through from the other side.

  After another moment of repeated screams from the crowd, people were corralled around the vans by the armed men. Hundreds of people were forced around the vans, surrounding the front of the stage as if they were ready to see a concert. Children sobbed while their mothers carried them, and others constantly yelled and swore at the gunmen who remained silent, yielding no expression, but watchful of the crowd. Several gunmen on the outside formed a distant barrier around the mass of people on all sides to contain the crowd. They came up around the back of a fountain that was adjacent to the back of the stage, trapping everyone who had hid there, with no place to escape.

  Sheffield remained quiet, thinking and waiting, unwilling to make a hasty move. He tried counting the gunmen, and thought it was somewhere around fifteen, but wasn’t sure if he could see all of them around the large crowd that had formed.

  Elise turned on her back and looked up at Sheffield. “What do you think they want?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you see Secretary Gamez?”

  “No.” He kept his focus on the vans. He wanted to say what he really thought was going on, but he was afraid that using the word ‘bomb’ would immediately incite panic. “Miss Whitten, I want you to be ready to run exactly when I tell you to. Be ready to get up fast, make sure to take off your high heels.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, slipping her shoes off, and rising so that she was crouched beneath the stage on her hands and knees.

  “Tranquilo, tranquilo. Nadie va a morir.” One of the four gunmen behind a van calmed the crowd by assuring them that no one was going to die. The other three behind the vans burst into movement and backed away from the back doors of the vans, trying to create space to open them. Once they had moved the crowd away, the gunmen opened the back doors of both vans at the same time, and then backed away with their rifles drawn.

  “They opened the back doors of the vans,” Sheffield whispered down to Elise.

  “Why? Are they taking something out?”

  “No, they just opened them and moved away.”

  The entire crowd around the vans silenced, attempting to understand what was happening as the gunmen had distanced themselves from the vans, but maintained hostile stances with their rifles aimed toward the people.

  Slowly, but steadily, armed men exited the vans. Because the back of the vans were faced the opposite way, Sheffield couldn’t tell who they were, but he did see numerous men in helmets falling out and into the crowd of people. It looked as if each van carried about five armed men who had filed out.

  “Okay, it looks like we have even more armed men, about ten more from the vans,” Sheffield said.

  Several screams erupted in the crowd followed by spots of quick movements. The crowd then panicked again with shouting and people trying to climb over one another to get away. As some people broke free of the crowd, they were immediately shot down by the men that had lined up around the outside, discouraging others from trying the same.


  “What the hell is going on?” Elise impatiently scooted out from underneath the stage and knelt so that just her eyes could see out over the crowd.

  “Stay down! They just shot someone,” Sheffield said, berating her.

  Ignoring Sheffield, Elise looked out and saw a man in a helmet as he brought down both his arms clumsily on top of a woman’s head and collapsed into her, bringing her down into the mass of people. The woman let out a long cry into the air, “Me muerde, me muerde!”

  “Oh no,” Elise said, standing to her feet. “They’re biting people!”

  Chapter Two: Jersey City

  “…And we know what we have lived for and what we will always live for. As citizens of this great nation, we have the tenacity and heart to know that we can be reborn of our hardships, and restored to our great American heritage. We are the patient hearts of mothers who lost their children. We are the emboldened courage of the countless fathers who died never knowing if their families would ever be safe. We are the innumerable heroes who together saved millions of lives from the greatest calamity that has ever struck this nation. We survived the greatest battle that has ever been fought before and by an enemy that had never been known. Yet to this day, we all continue to feel the absence of every single one of our six million brothers and sisters that we lost during that brief two-day battle. We know them, we love them, and we will forever miss them.

  “It is for two reasons that we come here to our beautiful Liberty State Park today. First, we come here for the majestic view of one of our nation’s finest cities, New York City. Although she sleeps for now, she will soon be open to house our widows, employ our children, and rise again as one of the greatest cities on Earth. In exactly one month, New York City will finally be swept of the scourge that once plagued her, and be open again to thrive as the beating pulse of our country.

  “The second reason we come here today is to celebrate and commemorate the achievements of one man. It was this man who, during our nation’s eleventh hour, was able to apply his instinct and experience to a situation that no one had ever been faced with before. It was his quick thinking combined with a brilliant scientific mind that was able to put the pieces together, under incredible pressure, to stave off both our enemies at home and abroad. The statue that we dedicate here today is only a humble symbol of the gratitude that we have for him. It is to this one man that our nation is forever indebted, and to whom I am proud to call my Chief of Staff. Ladies and gentleman, Dr. Reginald Stark,” Rambert finished and led the applause.

  The large media core that had assembled on the park grass applauded loudly. Stark rose from his chair behind the podium and straightened his white, button-up shirt. Adjusting his glasses, he removed a rolled-up speech snuggled under his armpit, and walked toward the podium.

  Stark gazed over the crowd. “Thank you, Mr. President. That introduction was far too generous, but I do appreciate the kind words.” He paused, looked over at Rambert who was now seated behind him, and then turned back toward the crowd, his crumpled notes sprawled on top of the podium. “The events that transpired over two years ago were by far the most devastating our country has ever seen. The disease that overtook us so quickly was unprecedented in both the nature of its origin and the speed at which it infected our people. It is only now that we can truly reflect upon the magnitude of its destruction. The economic impact that the infection had on our country and the world is too overwhelming to compare to any previous recession. We have paid dearly for the greediness of men and the carelessness with which they had for life. It is only now that our country shows signs of recovery, both economically, and psychologically, from the infection that ravaged this nation.

  “I would like to thank the state of New Jersey for erecting this beautiful statue of a somewhat weathered man.” Stark paused while the audience gave a low chuckle. “And although I believe I am not deserving of it as a single man, I accept it as a symbol of our perseverance through the millennial plague, and hope that it is a constant reminder to always be wary of the frontier of science, and the untold destruction that can come from untamed technology. Thank you.” The crowd applauded again as Stark took his seat next to Rambert, who patted him on the shoulder, and gave him a smile.

  “Good job,” Rambert whispered into his ear. “Was it really that hard?”

  “Just shut up,” Stark said and smiled while looking forward at the crowd. “Is this thing over now?”

  “Yes, you ungrateful jackass. It’s over.” A swell of music from a local high school band filled the air from the side of the stage. Everyone came to their feet and watched the presidential staff exit and make their way to an extensive motorcade parked along a winding road by the grass.

  Rambert and Stark walked side by side as they waved to various journalists and cameras, Stark hating every smile and wave he gave to them. Approaching their limo, Stark looked back across the waters of the Hudson River as lazy sun from the western horizon settled on the dark buildings of Manhattan. The city was dormant with no people to drive buses, push elevator buttons, yell at cabbies, or buy coffee. There was no electricity to push the subways or light up billboards. The city had become a graveyard of economic titans who had once conquered the modern world. It just survived a terrible disease, he thought, it’s not quite out of its coma. The crowd of secret servicemen walked swiftly behind Rambert and Stark, encouraging them to get into the back of the limo.

  Once inside, Stark squirmed out of his jacket, and threw it on the seat beside him. “Who the hell makes a huge bronze statue of a person who is still alive and still in the government? It’s so stupid. Does it have to be so gigantic?” Stark asked.

  “Just accept the honor and stop making such a big deal about it. You actually might deserve it.” Rambert took out his phone and started typing.

  “It would make a lot more sense if it were a statue of me with a plaque that read ‘Dumb Luck.’ ”

  “Just shut up about it already, everyone is getting sick of it. I couldn’t possibly care about your dumb face being on that thing.”

  Stark looked at him, wide-eyed for a moment. “Then why in the hell did we just do that whole charade?”

  “Your face is the only thing that Americans can even hold onto right now. Everyone is just… losing it. You know exactly what my approval rating is. No one cares what I have to say anymore.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “That single icon of you is doing a whole lot more than you think.”

  “Fine, whatever.” Stark opened his briefcase and shuffled through some papers. “Do you want to talk about what you keep putting off?” He looked over at Rambert.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You know.”

  “No, what I’d like to talk about is our sleeper cell, and what we’re going to do about him.”

  “Nothing has happened with him and you know it. That’s been a two year waste of time.”

  “You don’t know that. It’s been a week since we’ve even gotten a report from Mayberry.”

  “Can we talk about my resignation?” Stark changed the subject.

  Rambert gave a small snort and looked up at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Yeah? Two years in, our country doing the worst it ever has since the depression, and you just want to be done with it?”

  “You know that’s not why. I can be put to better use elsewhere in my lab. I can’t keep coming to work for you in the day, and then go to the lab on my off time, and never get any sleep. I was never,” he let out a long breath, “I was never meant to be in politics. I’m not good at this, and I need to just get out.”

  “Can I paint a picture for you real quick?” Rambert slowly took his arms out of the sleeves of his jacket and leaned forward in his seat.

  “Not this shit, again. Stop painting pictures for me,” Stark replied.

  “This country is at twenty-seven percent unemployment, our debt to GDP ratio is at an all-time high of one hundred and fifty-five percent and our inflation is exploding. Our healt
hcare costs now occupy somewhere around forty-five percent of our GDP, and now that most of our money has gone into defense, our public debt has ballooned to over twenty-six trillion dollars. Those high altitude nukes were… they were the worst thing that’s ever happened to our economy. We can never do anything like that again.”

  “I know, I know. Stop,” Stark said drawing out his voice. “Stop giving me this same speech every week.”

  “I’m not saying I would’ve done anything different, but the damage that that magnetic pulse did to the Eastern coast was… we can hardly even estimate it in a dollar amount. The damage is unprecedented.”

  “Yes, I’m well aware.”

  “Oh, and let me fill you in on our foreign policy: Israel has become completely introverted. I couldn’t possibly tell you what is going on over there between them and all their Middle Eastern enemies. Germany won’t pick up the damn phone because they’re too busy trying to stop the EU infrastructure from crumbling before their eyes. Putin, as always, is putting on a great show of diplomacy, while at the same time trying to ridicule me at every corner. One of our biggest trading partners and now tenuous enemy, China, is sanctioning our asses to death, and has some mystery floating navy that somehow just came out of nowhere.”

  “I know, Larry, I know.” Stark looked out past Rambert’s balding hairline, at the trees passing by through the window.

  “It’s like all the countries that are supposed to be our friends have become too busy with their domestic issues to even return a call from the president of the United States. We’ve completely lost respect on the global stage because we no longer have any economic interest to other wealthy countries. Oh, and I forgot about the constant threat of terrorists attacks from every known organization right now. I can’t remember the last time we were at code orange or yellow or whatever. I have inherited the worst presidency in the history of our country.” Rambert stopped speaking and stared at Stark.

  “And how am I supposed to help with any of this?”