Darrell Bain - The Melanin Apocalypse

His wife gripped his hand. “John, I’m sorry, I’m not very brave. Could… could you get me enough to just end it? You know there’s no hope.” She grimaced as another wave of excruciating pain swept over her body.

He squeezed her hand, feeling all the love he held for her welling up inside, creating almost as much ache in him as the Harcourt virus that was ravaging her body was inflicting on her.

“All right,” he said, choking the words out. He released her hand and went to prepare a solution that would ease her out of life in dignity. As he mixed it he heard President Marshall at another press conference, denying again that he was covering anything up. John Dawson didn’t know if that were true or not, but he did know from the conversations in the oval office he had begun recording once his wife fell ill that if he were not complicit in knowing how the virus began, he was certainly in sympathy with its consequences. It was time to release the recordings. It would mean his job, possibly prison, but he no longer cared. The light of his life was going to be permanently dimmed as soon as he returned with the medicine.

In the big ward at the CDC where treatment facilities had been set up, Leroy Barclay lay dying. He had little regret. Life had never offered him much, he thought. And all because I was born black. Well, if he had to go, he intended to see that some of the damned white men who had made life miserable for his people went with him. That was possible now, and his first target would be one of the highest officials in the government that had been guilty of so much of the oppression and exploitation. He thought of the gun concealed beneath his body and tried to look sick instead of guilty as the secret service agents roved through the room, searching for possible threats. The patients weren’t forced to undergo body searches and the metal framework of the bed made metal detectors effectively useless. After a while they left, but he waited. He would be able to hear them coming when it was time; a political entourage would make lots of noise.

Silas Morgan could practically feel the cancer eating away at his body. He ignored the pain while he cradled the sniper’s rifle in his arms. This would be a long shot, but well within the realm of possibility for him. Marine snipers were the best in the world, and he had been among the best of the best. He knew he was doing a good thing. General Newman himself had recruited him. Well, not personally, but he had assurances that the general and others high in government were behind the effort. That’s what was needed to put the country back on the right path, a path where the niggers and Jews and Spics were kept in their place instead of being allowed to run free, acting like they were just as good as whites. Shit, they even let them marry traitorous white sluts now and it was legal! Well, he might die; no, he was certainly going to die, but he would leave behind a better country, with a man in charge who didn’t play politics with subhuman mud people. He knew he was the right man for the job, too; There was no chance of getting away, not from this close, but it didn’t matter. He was dying from cancer anyway. They might kill him out of hand or try to hold him for trial and execution before his natural death, but it still didn’t matter.

The little pill in his shirt pocket would take care of that, and also exclude any possibility of giving up the men he worked for.

In the distance, the throng was gathering, getting ready for the president’s appearance. He eased the barrel of the rifle forward, into its final position. Just a few minutes now… he saw the president striding toward the podium, thinking of what a great spot he had picked for the press conference. The White House stood in the background, a perfect icon for the cameras, a reminder of the power behind his words. Up until now. The president stopped at the podium and looked down at his notes, already laid out for him. Silas had already adjusted for wind and elevation. He moved the rifle barrel minutely, centering the crosshairs of the scope on the president’s head. He took a deep breath, eased it out and slowly pulled back on the trigger.

The interview with the vice president was finished. Doug had been surprised at how bright and hot the lights were and finally fully realized why interviewees had a tendency to perspire under them. Fortunately, that was over and now they were touring patient wards. Vice President Santes had insisted on visiting some of the patients before leaving and asked for Doug and the others to come with her.

There was little warning. One minute everything was fine; the next, the lead secret service agent suddenly became alarmed. He pressed a finger to his ear, better to hear the feed coming to him from the device affixed to his other ear. “The President!” he yelled. “The president has been shot!”

All eyes turned toward the vice president, including those of the secret service agent. Only Doug was in a position to see the patient’s hand coming from beneath the covers. Without thinking, or with any concern for his own safety, he dived for the gunner’s hand with his only good one. He barely managed to deflect the shot. The bullet plowed into an agent beside the vice president. Before others could converge on him, the patient cried out in frustration, trying to wrest the gun from Doug’s grasp.

Doug was in a position where he could get no leverage. He held on grimly and could only stare in horror as the gunman was able to slowly turn the barrel—toward him. He flinched, but didn’t let go, knowing the vice president had to be protected no matter what. At the last second he managed to get his other arm in the way, the one with the cast on it. The next bullet plowed a furrow into the cast and through the muscle of his forearm. He was shoved away an instant later and two more shots rang out, but those were from the secret service agents. With the abrupt report that the president had been shot, they were taking no chances. The assassin was dead; the agent he had shot instead of the vice president was dead from the hollow point that plowed into his neck, shattering his spine. Doug was the only other casualty, and even he didn’t realize he had been hit until he saw smoke still curling from the cast and felt the beginning pain from his wound.

All the rest of the rest of the episode was anti-climactic for him. When June saw blood seeping from the hole in the cast and out of the opening near his hand, she insisted that he be cared for right away.

His wound could be treated under local anesthetic; only the muscle had been hit.

“We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” Doug joked as the same doctor who had repaired him before attended to him again. He flinched as the cast cutter touched his arm. The circular, toothed blade looked ominously sharp.

“Young man, I’m certainly willing to call a halt to it. I had just dozed off for some well deserved rest when this happened.” He had to talk around the noise of the special instrument used to cut away the cast, an electric saw with a blade that vibrated rather than spun.

“Was the president hurt or killed? Have you heard?” Doug asked, his eyes still fixed on the saw.

Surprisingly, it proved to be not dangerous at all. The vibration just ate through the cast without touching his skin.

“I think he’s dead, but don’t take my word for it; I’m just going by what people have told me.” The nurse used an instrument to gently open the cast along the cut and replaced it with a temporary device to hold his broken arm immobile while the new wound in his forearm was attended to.

“The president is dead,” June said, returning from a quick visit to Amelia to see whether or not she was needed back at her desk immediately. “There’s something else causing a lot of upset. A secret service agent released some recordings made from the oval office and they’re just now being broadcast. If the President wasn’t in on the plot with Tomlin and General Newman, he was certainly in agreement with the results. If he hadn’t been assassinated, he would have had to resign anyway. And if not, he certainly couldn’t have been re-elected.