The President went to the situation room. I was stationed out on the East Lawn. We knew there was a disturbance in New York City and it had spread through to Brooklyn and New Jersey. At that point, there was no fear for the President’s life in Washington D.C. We were more worried about “Fence Jumpers” and perhaps a “Lone Gunman Situation.” However, we had no idea what was coming for us.
The National Guard had taken over one of the Staten Island Ferries. Civilians started running towards the boat but they would not let any of us on. They didn’t know if we were human or flesh eaters. I showed on of the Guardman my press pass but he said he wasn’t going to let me on. We saw the Guard leave the island. They left all of us to die. That’s when people started jumping into the water. That’s when I jumped into the water. We all just swam for our lives. I am sure no everyone knew how to swim. Those people probably preferred to die that way.
We were on the forty-second floor of our building. I called all of the employees into the atrium area. There were about two hundred of us. As a hedge fund manager, my job is to have better information that anyone. So I knew exactly what was going on. None of us were going to be able to leave the building for a while. So I told everyone what was going on and laid down the rules. “They are eating each other alive down there. No one can go down. We have food up here. We will ration it out and stay in this building until I am sure the coast is clear. Absolutely no one is to go below the 38th floor. I will have security positioned on the 38th floor. They are under my direct orders to shoot to kill anyone that comes up from the 37th floor. Call your spouses, call your children. Tell them you love them. We will be here for a while.”
When the situation spilled out beyond the island of Manhattan, we knew this went from being a isolated situation to a regional situation. The entire Northeast from Pennsylvania up to New England went into “Enhanced Martial Law.” That meant that all authority is transferred to the U.S. military in those states. We started getting reports of local law enforcement abandoning their posts to be with their families. There were worries that military personal would do the same.
I made the direct order that any Guardsman who abandons his post will be shot on sight. I personally made sure that order went down to every unit. I was not going to have the situation deteriorate any further. However, that did not deter some Guardsman for making the wrong decision.
I was in a PC (Personal Carrier) with a dozen Guardsmen when one of them suddenly pointed his weapon at me and fired. I was grazed on the side of my helmet and fell to the ground. A huge fire fight went off in the back. The PC crashed and we were turned over onto our side. I was dazed but not completely knocked out. I crawled out of the vehicle and notice that most of the men were dead. One of them got to their feet and started to run away. I pulled out my sidearm and ordered him to stop. He didn’t. I shot him in the back. He fell to the ground. I ran up to him to see how bad he was hit. I had shot him through the lung and he was spitting blood out of his mouth. He was bad. He asked me to kill him. “Don’t leave me here for the flesh eaters.” He begged. The fucking coward. I show have just walked away. But I was feeling compassionate that day. I took off his helmet, aimed my sidearm at his right temple and fired.
I was working on the grounds of the Pierce Estate when I started hearing about the uprising in Manhattan. I was thinking, “Well, it’s about time. People were hungry.” I was being paid in food. Which didn’t bother me because I was so damn hungry. The Pierce family are one of the richest people in the United States. They had all the food they needed. I got a free lunch while I worked. At the end of the week, they basically let me fill up a sack of groceries from their personal storage area. My apartment in Mt. Vernon didn’t have working electricity or running water. I would take the sack of food and barter for clean water, batteries and weed. Anyway, I started listening to the radio while I was working in the basement. The family comes down there and tells me to go upstairs. The head security guy hands me a shotgun and tells me to patrol the outside of the estate. Now, I am a 43 year old black man. I don’t exactly feel comfortable walking around Darien, Connecticut with a shotgun in my hands. He told me not to worry. Well, these people are putting food in my mouth so I don’t argue. I join the dozen or so housekeepers, landscapers and servants with weapons. We all started talking. One of the young people was on the internet and let us all in on what was happening. Fuck! We’re supposed hundreds of thousands of man eating people with a couple of guns. We all thought about leaving. But most of us live in New York. We thought it would be better to stay put in Darien.
I lived in Liberty Town for about four months. We had run out of food for three days when the uprising happened in New York. We heard about the starving people in Central Park resorting to cannibalism. Some of the people who had already lost their mind started running around like mad men. I heard screaming. They started eating some of the sick people. The tent city deteriorated fast. It was as though the desperation turned into madness. I knew then that whatever happened in Central Park would happen here.
I made it to New Jersey just after sunset. From there, I knew I had to get out of the area quick. I knew my way around the area and knew that the only real reliable mode of transportation are the commercial and military rails. The military railways are heavily guarded. But I was hoping to ride a commercial rail in Greenville. I got lucky and found a ride. I climbed up to the top of a car carrying machine parts south. I checked my smart phone for the latest news on Twitter. That’s when I started reading about flesh eating incidents in Phily, Baltimore, Boston, Upstate New York. A horrible shiver went through me. This is spreading. There will be no place to run. That night I considered suicide. The only thing that stopped me was that I was so tired, I feel asleep right on top of the rail car.
At 23:30 hours of Day Zero, we got our “Code Black.” The President and his family were immediately evacuated via Marine One and sent to Air Force One. I was in one of the chase cars inroute to Joint Base Andrews. I did not know if I would be assigned to join the POTUS on Air Force One. And frankly I didn’t know if I wanted to go with him. I knew I would personally be safe. However, my mother lives in Baltimore and I knew that all major cities were under siege from the flesh eaters. When I got to Joint Base Andrews, I was assigned to protect the President as he boarded Air Force One. Then I was ordered to secure the White House. I really wanted to abandon my post and help my mother. I called her and found out that her neighbor had taken her into his own house.