Eriq gestured to the doorway when he addressed the Detail guard. "After you," he said.

The guard didn't hesitate. He went through the opening, got to his feet, and directed his pistol forward to establish a safety zone. "Clear."

Others followed, taking residence in the hallway.

Just as the last person exited from the tier, the fan's blades were ending their downward course and began its alternate drive by slowing its spin pattern, stopping, and then began its new rotation by moving in a clockwise direction, causing an updraft.

Oh no!

Eriq poked his head out far enough to see what was going on four flights above.

The dead were looking down at him, their milked-over eyes drawing a bead.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

The words sounded like the scales of slithering snakes brushing over one another.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

And then they began to descend the rungs of the ladder, the updraft posing as no deterrent at all.

Eriq dove through the hole, got to his knees, hit a series of buttons on the keypad, and the panel closed behind him. When he got to his feet, he withdrew the gun from his waistband. "We've got to move," he said. "This panel is going to last about as long as the last one."

"To where?" asked Eldridge.

"On the other side of the ship there are stairwells."

"The other side of the ship?" inquired Michelin. "Through those things? Seriously? And what if those stairwells are congested with them, Mr. Wyman? Do we simply shrug them off?"

Eriq struggled with his self-control, but caught himself. "I can only provide us with a direction that will take us to safety," he said. "I have no control of what may or may not be between us and Air Force Six."

President Michelin saw Eriq holding his firearm down by his side. Then he pointed to the weapon. "How many bullets, Mr. Wyman. How many bullets do you have to get us through?"

Eriq swallowed. Not many, he thought. "Seven."

Michelin turned to his Detail officer. "And you?"

He did a quick count. "Three plus my magazine, a total of sixteen shots."

"Twenty-three bullets, Mr. Wyman. And how many of them?"

There was a pounding on the panel behind them. The dead had made it to the lower tier, and now a door less than two-inches thick separated them. The second punch to the door caused it to dent inward, the edges around the seams stressing with fractures.

"Twenty-three is better than nothing, wouldn't you agree?"

. . . Bang . . .

President Michelin sided up to him and spoke in a manner that sounded like a whispering, angry hiss; one forged by ultimate fear. "You get me the Hell out of here," he said. "You hear me. You get me the Hell out of here now."

. . . Bang . . .

The panel was coming loose at the edges.

Eriq quickly noted light spilling into the corridor from the surrounding edges of the panel door, which were beginning to peel away at the seams enough to allow the light from the shaft to lengthen across the floor.

Without saying another word, Eriq took the lead with everyone maintaining pursuit.

. . . Bang . . .

There was the sound of metal skating across the floor.

The door had fallen free.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

Oval Office, New DC "Mr. Vice President." The attorney general entered the Oval Office with a video tablet in his hand. Vice President Schaffer was looking out the window with his hands clasped behind the small of his back. He could see the surrounding high walls in the distance, the defense barely noticeable behind a curtain of haze.

Schaffer turned. "Yes, Julien."

The attorney general held up the tablet. "We received confirmation from the pilot of the Winged Banshee," he said. "The Force Elite have made it onboard. But there was a problem."

Vice President Schaffer remained silent, waiting for the attorney general to expound on the matter.

"It appears that the unit tried to board manually when one of the soldiers was killed in the process, but the rest of the team made it onboard and are commencing a search for the president as we speak."

Vice President Schaffer nodded in acknowledgement.

"We've also been informed that Air Force Six has been compromised and disabled. And that the pilot has been killed." The attorney general hesitated to weigh his words carefully. "And there's something else," he finally said.

Again, the vice president waited for an explanation.

The attorney general held up the tablet. "We've received images of what the Force Elite is up against," he told him. "I think you need to see this."

The vice president rounded the desk and closed the gap between them with his hand out to receive the tablet. Once the tablet was in his possession, he began to scroll through the images by sliding his fingertip across the screen.

He was looking at images of something that was more creature than human, the flesh on their bones as corrupt as the bodies that invaded the Old cities. He held up the tablet. "You've confirmed these images to be valid?"

"Yes, sir. What's happening down here is happening up there . . . The dead are walking."

Vice President Schaffer handed back the tablet and returned to the window. "Are you a religious man, Julien?"

"Yes and no. I believe . . . but I don't practice."

"Then perhaps you should pray like you've never prayed before," he returned.

"Sir?"

Vice President Schaffer sighed as he continued to take in the view of New DC. It was a beautiful day, he considered. The sky was less yellow than most days, more blue than sulfur-colored. "We've been living a lie," he finally said. "We've been telling the people in the Fields of Elysium that everything's fine. That life is a paradise, when in fact it's a faade, a veneer to gloss over the fact that we're truly a dying society."

The attorney general appeared perplexed.

"We're slowly starving to death," said Schaffer. "We just don't know it yet." He turned to Julien, who appeared stupefied. "Surprised?"

"Sir . . ." His words trailed.

The vice president feigned a smile. "Food supplies are dwindling, Julien. Within a year we'll become exactly like those things onboard Mausoleum Twenty Sixty-Nine, or those who have attacked the Old cities, looking for food when the only sustenance is each other. I was hoping that this problem would eventually be the problem of my children's children-that the end be theirs while I live in luxury. Does that sound selfish? To want the end to happen to somebody else?"

"Sir . . ." Again, his words wilted.

"You didn't know, did you?'

The attorney general shook his head. No.

"I'm not surprised," he returned. "Michelin kept the matter quiet, like most of us, but now it's become a fact. These things-whatever they are-are the soldiers of Revelation. We've destroyed everything. Now it's time for the Final Judgment."

The attorney general appeared lost. "Mr. Vice President, are you all right?"

"Don't question my sanity, Julien. Look at the pictures on that tablet you carry around. They're not clansmen from the Old cities or Wasteland savages. They're harbingers of Death brought on by our own irresponsibility, and they're here because we're no longer on top of the food chain, but a part of it." He turned to face the attorney general. "That's fact, Julien. That's the bottom line. All this"-he gestured to the plushness of the room-"is the polish of a fruit that's been rotting underneath for a very long time now."

Julien's eyes became downcast, settling on the image of the Federation seal on the bright blue carpet in the room's center. "Are you certain about this?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. The aquaponics system is depleting faster than the demand, and the vegetable supplies are reducing even faster. That's why we've implemented the mandatory order of sterilization after the birth of a single child. But that order came too late. We've been outliving our means for a while now."

The attorney general walked to the edge of the couch and allowed his legs to buckle, falling into the cushions in defeat. "I had no idea."

"Nobody wants to see the truth for what it is," said Schaffer. "Especially Michelin. He was like me, believing that the problem would be that of his children's children."

The attorney general looked at the images on the tablet. "Why?" he finally asked.

"What?"

"I said . . . why?"

Schaffer shrugged. "We could blame God, I suppose. Say that He abandoned us as much as we abandoned Him. But the truth is, we did this ourselves. God had no say in this. But if you want to pray, Julien, I don't think it would hurt."

"How did this happen?"

Schaffer pointed to the sky. "Do you remember that cloud? That wave of cosmic dust that passed over this part of the galaxy?"

"Yes."

"The moment it passed I felt my skin crawl. And then they came. The harbingers. Those who were summarily murdered in the Wastelands to allegedly bring safety to the Fields of Elysium. Kill the threat, we told ourselves. Kill those who were starving. Kill those because it was the humane thing to do." He turned to the attorney general. "Do you have any idea how easy it was to justify the act of genocide?"

"I had no idea."

"It was a closeted secret. We told the forums that the forces were policing the areas for Elysium safety when, in fact, they were kill squads. When the cosmic cloud passed, it was like something celestial anointed them, and they rose as a source of justification for our actions. I'm damned, Julien, and so is this planet and everyone on it. It's just a matter of time before they breach the walls of New DC."

The attorney general appeared numbed.

"We can fight the good fight for a while. But there's too many of them."

"Too many of them?" the attorney general got to his feet. "How many did you kill?"

"Believe me, Julien, we thought it to be the best solution at the time."

"Genocide."

"In hindsight, I wish things could have been different. But now the dead have risen, and the consequences of our actions have come back to destroy us. Literally."

The attorney general's shoulders slumped to the crookedness of an Indian's bow.

"I'm sorry, Julien. Go home and be with your family. Pray to God, and find Him in your heart. We'll hold the Fields of Elysium for as long as we can. But End Times is coming."

The attorney general looked at him, his eyes welling with tears. "I was going to be a grandfather in three months," he said. "My first one." Then: "Damn you to Hell."

Vice President Schaffer nodded, accepting this condemnation. "I'm sorry, Julien. I wish things could have be different, but like I said, I wished that the problem of End Times would be the problem of our grandchildren. But it is what it is."

The attorney general tossed the tablet on the couch. Without saying anything additional, he turned and left the Oval Office, closing the door softly behind him.

Schaffer clenched his teeth in self-anger and regret, causing the muscles in the back of his jaw to work. Once again he turned to relish the color and beauty of the roses beyond the window. In the distance he could see the drab gray steel of fortified walls stretching along the borders of the city.

He closed his eyes.

Can you forgive me, Lord?

But in his heart he knew that the answer was 'no.'

And that's when he heard the distant sounds of the automated turret guns going off.

The first indication that there was something wrong was when the automated turret guns went off in quick succession. The smart weapons zeroed in on targets that spilled over the hills like ants to a picnic, as black waves.

High-caliber bullets erupted from the weapons at a rate of twenty-five rounds per second, the shots finding their marks and decimating their targets.

Severed limbs-arms, legs, heads-took flight when bullets impacted. Bodies fell, then rose, and fell again, as bullets struck and ripped their flesh. Black founts of fluid erupted when bullets tore through their abdomens and out their backs. Spines broke and folded. Yet the dead continued their march on the city. Masses of the dead blanketed the landscape and converged to the walls.

The turrets continued their volley, the spent shells hitting the parapet floors like endless chinks of falling coins.

When one turret emptied, it was quickly loaded by a soldier who manned the rows, but ammunition was running low.

Wave after wave of the living dead raced for the city walls, their gaits more like loping than running. They were quick and fast, and for those who reached the walls, they bridged the gap between the surface and parapet by clambering over each other to form a makeshift ladder. The dead climbed over one another, the pile rising to the parapets edges, getting close.