Some of the automated gun turrets had run dry as they clicked in rapid succession, even when their sights scanned movement they were unable to take anything down.

Pyramids of the dead grew, their putrid bodies scaling each other to reach the top of the wall. When the soldiers along the parapets saw the futility of the moment, they abandoned their posts.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

The mantra sounded like angry whispers.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

And panic began to fill the streets of New DC.

Strykers were activated, setting up a perimeter around the Federation White House, and armed soldiers wearing composite gear readied themselves by creating skirmish lines.

As the last gun turret emptied, the dead spilled over the walls like fluid spilling over the edges of a cup after having been overfilled.

They had taken to the streets, loping about with the agility of monkeys, finding and killing their prey, and taking life at will. They hunted. They killed. They fed.

Bullets from assault weapons did little to slow the tide. It was the Strykers that did the most amount of damage as their machine guns laid waste to the walking dead by tearing them apart. But like the turrets, their weapons finally went dry, and when they did, the living dead mounted the vehicles, stripped off the hatches, and killed those inside by ripping them apart.

Screams filled the air, mostly cries of agony as the dead consumed the flesh of the living.

Fires burned.

And the last line of defenses gave as the soldiers were overwhelmed.

New DC had fallen.

Vice President Schaffer had seen it all from the window of the Oval Office.

He was a spectator because that was all he could be. And he watched his city burn.

He was not a soldier.

And he was not a man of optimism.

But he was a man of self-preservation.

When his Detail threw open the doors leading into the Oval Office, he quickly followed their lead and went to the elevator that led to the fallout shelter deep beneath the White House.

It was a 300-foot descent to a sub-chamber completely surrounded by concrete walls and titanium doors. It was a comm center, a hideout, a place where the storeroom shelves were filled with enough MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) to last for two to three years.

So he took refuge as a man alone, the door closing and locking behind him as his Detail stood to defend the castle, only to die at the hands and claws of the living dead, sacrificing their lives as their souls were ripped from their bodies in a futile gesture to save the life of their savior.

Vice President Schaffer.

The man who helped to justify the means of genocide, and created a war that could never be won.

When the door to the shelter closed, he found himself alone.

No family.

And certainly no friends.

From the bank of monitors aligning against the far wall, he would watch New DC burn to the ground with the White House above him nothing but skeletal remains. There was no escape, he knew that. And when supplies were finally gone, then he would starve.

He sat down at the comm console, booted up the screens, and watched the city die.

Then he wished that the problem unfolding before him would be that of his descendants.

All he wanted, the only thing he asked for, was to live a full life.

That wish would never come true.

Chapter Thirty-Five.

Skully, James Schott, and the rest of the Force Elite had taken the stairwell on the portside of the ship. For the first level there was zero resistance, the team moving quickly and at will, the sound of their footsteps echoing as they pushed themselves forward for the long climb.

It was at the third level they heard something that sounded like the hiss and whispers of pipes alleviating the pressures of steam. But this sounded different. It sounded like words being spoken as hushes.

Skully raised a closed fist, halting his team.

The hushes grew from above, the hisses getting closer, louder, and then the heads of the living dead looked over the railings to locate the position of Skully's team below.

Bony fingers pointed accusingly at them, their mouths dripping with black bile as they opened their mouths to whisper a concerted mantra.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

Skully's team was on the third level, with one level to go before reaching the mainframe.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

The living dead were on the sixth level looking down. Then several more heads appeared from the levels above them, with tier after tier of the dead looking down and pointing their tine-like fingers as if the living were a novelty when, in fact, they were pointing out prey.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

The Force Elite set their laser sights to the skulls of those on the fifth tier.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

"On three, boys." Skully held up three fingers and began to tick them off.

One finger went down. Two.

Another went down. One.

When he balled his hand into a fist, a volley of synchronous gunfire went off as bullets ripped through skulls, blowing gore and matter through the exit wounds. In less than a blink of an eye they had cleared the stairwell on the sixth tier, downing the dead. It also galvanized others to race down the staircase to get to their quarry, their whispers now tongue-lolling cries.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

"Let's move, people!"

Skully headed his team up the flight.

The living dead seemed to pour down the stairs like insects, screaming in wails that were primordial.

Skully's team made thirteen steps with thirteen more to go.

The living dead did twice that, being much faster and more agile.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

Seven steps to go for Skully's team.

But the dead proved much faster, having closed the gap from the seventh tier and above to reaching the doorway on the fourth level.

Assault weapons went off in a quick chain of gunfire as muzzle flashes lit up the stairwell in strobe-light fashion. Portions of heads were sheared or blown away, falling the dead. But they were like the hydra; you kill those in the front line, and three others took their place.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

Skully's team made it to the door to the fourth level. Those of the dead who received fatal wounds to their heads pooled at their feet as twisted limbs wrapped together in wild tangles. The gunfire continued, causing more bodies to spill down the stairs.

"Let's go, Mr. Schott!" yelled Skully. "If you know the code to this door, then you better get to it!"

The mantra and screams were getting louder: Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.

There was a keypad to the left of the door. Schott punched five numbers: ACCESS DENIED.

"What?" Schott said more to himself. His finger was shaking wildly. He had punched the wrong keys.

"It's not like we have all day!" screamed Juggler.

Bodies were piling at their feet; the smell of rot was all around them.

Schott tried the buttons again, this time striking pay dirt as the bolts to the metallic door drew back from their little circular sockets and unlocked it, the door opening marginally as if in invitation.

Jim Schott was the first man through. He was quickly followed by the rest of the Force Elite with Meade the last man launching himself through the opening. Schott hit the keypad with the tip of his forefinger, punching the lock code.

Decaying hands offered palsied swipes through the opening as the door began to close. Arms that were caught had collapsed between the doors hydraulic pressure, snapping the bones and tearing away the flesh in brutal amputation.

Limbs lay unmoving at their feet, with blue-gray hands lying about with curled fingers looking like crabs upon their backs.

But they could still hear them through the thick metal door.

. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .

Skully looked at his watch. They had twenty-four minutes left to retrieve the president and exit the mausoleum. "Where's the mainframe?" he asked Schott.

Schott pointed to the end of the corridor. "This way," he said.

They all followed.

They had twenty-three minutes left to find the president by the time they reached the mainframe.

The room was circular with a bevy of pipes running across the ceiling. The floor was of metal grating that could be removed to get at the electrical lines underneath, if need be. The mainframes were actually three monolithic panels situated in the room's center. Against the far wall was an 8x10 foot screen.

"This room is actually the brains of the ship," Schott said. "These panels control everything on board."

Juggler walked around the mainframes in examination. There were no lights, switches, or anything to tell him that they were anything more than smooth panels made of composite. He ran his fingertips over the surface of one mainframe. "They seem tiny for such a large ship," he said.

"Tiny but effective. From this vantage point we can tell if there's any kind of a problem anywhere onboard Mausoleum Twenty Sixty-Nine. We can scan every level visually on that monitor right over there." He pointed to the wall-mounted screen. "The screen will show you twenty separate images for each level. If you want to pinpoint the location of the president, then this is it."

"What are you waiting for, then?" Skully showed him his watch, meaning that time was running short.

"Yes, sir." Schott booted up the computer. After a moment a light mote appeared on the screen, then blossomed to twenty separate monitors on one screen, five rows of four for twenty live shots per level.

The walking dead were everywhere.

"What level is this?" asked Skully.

Schott checked the data. "Eighth level," he said.

Funboy shook his head. "It's gonna take a helluva lot longer than twenty minutes to wade through those things," he commented.

"What level was the governor being buried at?" Skully came up beside Schott and looked down at the console.

"Eighteen," he said. Without waiting for Skully to issue the command, he switched to the Observatory level.

Schott then manned the joystick, moving certain cameras to get a panoramic view of the landing.

"Now that's more like it," said Meade.

The camera panned back and forth, sighting nothing. And when he caught the governor's tomb, he zoomed in. The entire landing was clear.

"The president's not in the Observatory," said Schott.

"Try the next level," said Skully.

The seventeenth level was a different story, however. The dead seemed to be everywhere. They leapt from one side of the hallways to the other like simians at play.