Vice President Schaffer was taking stock of inventory inside the presidential bunker as New DC burned beyond the White House doors. After watching his security team through the monitor get ripped apart as limbs got wrenched from their sockets and tubing from throats get pulled free, he turned off the monitor and saw the situation as it was. He was the last man standing.

He walked the concrete corridors with conduits of fluorescent lights running the length of the ceiling. The presidential room was quite spartan with a queen-size bed, two nightstands, and a digital library containing more than 200,000 eBooks, both fiction and nonfiction, with a majority of them being political texts penned from renowned notables dating back to the eighteenth century.

On the wall opposite the bed was a large TV monitor. Though it was off, he could see his vague image staring back at him. What does one of the last men in the world watch when no one is broadcasting?

He closed his eyes and tried to swallow the sour lump in his throat.

This is now my home, he thought. I'm trapped in my own personal house of horrors.

He then checked his food and water supplies, enough to last two, maybe three years, if he was conservative.

After returning to the comm center he sat before the monitors and brought up live feeds from the twenty-five Fields of Elysium. All the cities had been compromised by the undead in a series of coordinated attacks, the one-time bastions of paradise now an empire on fire.

The vice president leaned back in his chair and watched the violence develop before him as the living were overtaken by the dead.

Schaffer shook his head in self-loathing and considered that Michelin, if not dead and if by the grace of God given the opportunity to return, would only do so to a Kingdom of Flames.

"It's all gone," he whispered to himself. "Everything."

The walking dead were everywhere. They were even at his front door, pounding.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

He switched the monitors to show the bunker's perimeter. Masses of the living dead had congregated outside the titanium door-a vault, really-and hammered away with their fists.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

The constant knocking would be a sound that he would have to listen to for the rest of his life.

. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

Chapter Forty-Three.

Skully led the way up the shaft by pressing his hands and feet against the walls inside the duct, and shimmied his way to the upper level. He was quickly followed by Juggler and Funboy, who found the climb quite taxing despite their fitness.

When Skully reached the grate of the fifth level, he contacted Meade through his lip mic. "Meade."

"Yeah, boss."

"We're at the fifth level. Do you see any tangos at the entry point?"

"Stand by." After a brief moment he was back online. "You have several tangos east of your location. There's no way to get around them, so you're gonna have to go through them. As soon as you dispatch them, I'll give you a route with minimal interference to your mark. But this isn't going to be easy, Skully. If you make noise, others will come. And you know how fast they are."

"That's why we have suppressors," he returned. "Am I good to penetrate the grate?"

"Go."

Skully leaned his back against the wall opposite the grate, pressed his feet to the wall next to the grille, and kicked a foot against the louvers and smashed the pieces into the hallway, causing them to skate across the floor much louder than he anticipated or hoped for. "Dammit."

The moaning of the walking dead stopped as pieces of metal slid across the floor in an adjacent corridor. They lifted their chins, sniffed the air, and picked up a scent. Living tissue was close.

Then they began to home in on the position of their prey.

As soon as they got a fix, they closed the gap by loping toward their quarry at a high rate of speed.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

Juggler was the last man out of the shaft when he heard Skully say, "Here they come, boys."

Skully took the lead position with Juggler and Funboy flanking him, the formation like the tip of a spear.

"A headshot's a dead shot," said Skully. "Be aware of your ammo count. Press forward, and do not stop until we reach our mark. Is that clear?"

Both answered: "Yes, sir."

"Hoorah."

"Hoorah!"

When they began to move forward with their assault weapons raised at eye level, they could hear the moans and slithering whispers around the bend getting louder, the masses getting closer.

"Meade." Skully called into his mic.

"I have you," he said. "You have sixteen tangos approaching your position. About thirty meters and closing fast."

"Copy."

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

When the undead rounded the bend of the corridor, Skully and his team opened up with the suppressors going off in a volley of loud spits.

. . . phffft . . .

. . . phffft . . .

. . . phffft . . .

The area lit up with muzzle flashes as the bullets found their marks and tore away whole sides of heads, leaving one eye, one nostril, and half rows of teeth. Other shots hit the centers of foreheads, which blew black gore out the exit holes in the back. Bodies fell as shots landed true. Sixteen targets. Sixteen shots. Sixteen dead who're staying dead.

"Move down the corridor to your left," Meade said. "You've got two groups of tangos converging. One from the rear, and one from the portside channel. You have three tangos in the channel route. Take them out. I'll lead once they've been eradicated."

"Copy that."

Skully and his unit took the left channel. The only resistance were the three walking dead who stood as if setting up a skirmish line with their hands out by their sides and their fingers splayed, ready to do battle.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee."

Skully raised his weapon, pulled the trigger, and took out the center creature, blowing off the crown of its head. As soon as the bullet hit its mark, the other two leapt through as bullets from Juggler's weapon stitched across their chests and abdomen, committing no damage as they came down swiping their talons against their weapons and deflected their lines of fire, causing bullets to strafe the pipes and steam to bleed profusely into the corridor.

A thick fog mass started to fill the corridor.

"Skully?" It was Meade, who sounded urgent.

But Skully was on his back with one of the undead poised over him with the sharp tines of its fingers pointed downward and getting ready for a downward strike. That's when the point of Funboy's weapon pressed against the undead's temple and he pulled the trigger, the entire head disappearing as if it was a magic trick, leaving nothing but the bony outcropping of its neck.

The last walking dead came across with its fingers and gashed three deep grooves across Juggler's Kevlar. Its follow-up strike came across and carved slices into his arm, tearing muscle and crippling Juggler's ability to counter.

When it raised its hand for the killing blow, Skully gained his feet and drove his Ka-Bar through the base of its skull, then drove the point of the knife upward until it pierced the cap of its skull, and it looked like the beginnings of a horn.

As the creature fell to its knees, its fingertips scraped the floor with the same harsh sound of being tracked across a blackboard, its life force draining. When Skully removed the blade, the body fell to the floor as if it was boneless.

Juggler was leaning against the wall, holding his arm and wincing in pain.

"How bad?" asked Skully.

"Bad enough," he grunted. "Those tips are like knives, Skully. The cuts are deep. My left side's useless." He then grit his teeth and cried out with discomfort. A burning itch was worming beneath the tears of his flesh, the pain becoming white-hot as it began to spread hotly along the length of his entire arm. "Something ain't right." He grunted once again before going to a knee.

Skully sounded concerned as he reached for his teammate "Juggler." Then into his lip mic: "Meade."

"Yeah, I'm here."

"We have a man down."

"You're clear for the moment, but tangos are closing in from the north-side tunnels. You need to haul it out of there."

Juggler conceded by handing over his weapon to Skully.

"What are you doing?" Skully asked him.

"Take the ammo."

"We're not leaving you-"

Juggler suddenly fell to both knees and went into a fit of projectile vomiting with bile so thick it had the same consistency as oil. The vomit was marked with several pinhead-sized organisms that writhed like larvae. After spitting out the last of the bile, he leaned against the wall as eddies of steam pooled about. "Something ain't right, Skully. I can feel it. Something just ain't right."

"Get to your feet, soldier."

Juggler waved his hand dismissively. "Not this time," he told him. "I'm too weak. Too tired."

Skully crouched down beside him. "Jug," he said demurely. He wasn't sure what to say since the Force Elite had never left one of their own behind before.

Juggler swallowed, then heaved a batch of black and foul-smelling bile. After wiping his forearm across bluing lips, he looked at Skully with a feigned smile. "This isn't about me," he stated weakly. "This is about the mission. I'd only slow you down. You know that. So take my weapon, find the president, and complete the primary objective. Don't allow your emotions to lose sight of the purpose as to why we're inside this mausoleum."

Juggler's eyes suddenly began to roll back, and then he began to convulse.

Within thirty seconds his final breath escaped his lungs, a very lengthy sigh.

"Skully." It was Funboy. "He's right. We gotta go."

Skully grabbed Juggler's weapon and removed the ammo clips, as well as Juggler's stash of ammunition.

"Skully."

"Yeah, Meade."

"You need to haul ass. They're coming from all points now. Take the corridor ahead of you for forty meters, bear left, and then right for approximately ten meters. There you'll find the supply elevator."

"Copy that." But Skully didn't move until Funboy finally escorted him away.

As they headed down the corridor, the burning itch in Juggler's arm continued to spread throughout the man's entire body. His system was rejuvenating dead cells. When Juggler finally came to be, the memories of what it used to be were quite vague-its mind's eye seeing nothing but images and snippets of a past that made no sense to it at all.

When it opened its eyes they were filmed over with a frosty sheen. Its skin had turned the color of dirty ice as its heart no longer beat within its chest. Getting to its feet, the thing that used to be Juggler sniffed the air. When its primal senses picked up the scent of the living, its hunger waxed.

Its prey had left a trail along the corridor.

And then it gave chase.

"Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee," it hissed.

"Coooooooooooome tooooooooooo meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

Skully and Funboy made it to the service elevator uncontested, but the factions were closing in. They could hear them coming.

Skully lifted the hatch to the elevator, but the platform was only big enough to carry one person at a time.

"Meade, how quick is this thing?" Skully asked through his lip mic.

"Schott says it fairly quick. About ten seconds a level."

"That's forty seconds up and forty back. That's a buck twenty. How far are the tangos?"

"You gotta get going now, Skully. You're cutting it close. You really are."

Skully turned to Funboy. "Hold the fort," he told him. "When it comes back down, get inside, lock the hatch, and you're good."

"Move!" Meade sounded as if time was critical.