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Senator William Rightheart walked into the large room, feeling the cold fire smoldering in the large fireplace on the opposite wall of the room. The fire reminded him of the men he was to meet here tonight. Cold, dark, trying to appear warm, and failing at it. Staring into the fire, he stood still for a moment.
Why did I agree to do anything for these people? Why did I ever even come here in the first place? I knew it was a bad decision. Why did I—
His thoughts were interrupted by the corpse at the head of the table. “Sit down, Senator.”
The senator obeyed, meandering over to the hard, straight-backed, uncomfortable chair at one end of the long table. He glanced at the other men sitting. A group of mummies and zombies were these men. He could swear to the fact that he saw a specter of death hovering in the corner of the room, moving away too fast for the senator to get a good look at him. The senator stared blankly at the leader of the dead.
“Senator Rightheart, we have called you here tonight to inform you of our next step in this grand scheme, in which we will need your…considerable influence.”
The democratic senator from California shuddered at the man’s very voice. The crinkling of old paper mixed with the hiss of a snake made up the words of this man.
I can’t even see his face…
The ghoul began to speak…
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Hours later, mentally beaten and abused, the senator crawled from the room, shaken and scared. He knew he could turn to no one. He had no wife, no children, no surviving family. Even if he did, there was no way he could terrorize them with what he knew. What could he do? Realizing he had no choice, Rightheart drove home.
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Lieutenant Mark Withers had been on the Metro Police Force for almost seven years. He now had a cushy assignment, simple patrol on Massachusetts Avenue, in one of the high-class districts. Tonight, he had duty.
Damn, only three butts left….gonna have to get m—
His radio crackled. “Echo Twelve, Echo Twelve, this is LMM Six Zero.”
“Go ahead, Six Zero,” replied the veteran officer.
“Echo Twelve, we have a strange call around the senatorial dorms, would you mind taking a drive? It’s probably bull, some senator screwing around…”
“Sure thing, Six Zero. Out.”
Although he knew it was more than likely a crank, Withers grew instantly more serious as soon as his foot made contact with the accelerator. Minutes later, he arrived at the senate dorms.
Climbing out of his car, he could tell who had made the call. A tall, brown-haired man who he immediately recognized as Senator Burnstein from Iowa was standing outside, looking nervously around, as though he were afraid some demon would fly out at him.
“Something wrong, Senator?” called Withers.
“Officer, there were some odd noises coming out of one of the rooms near me…I didn’t have any idea what in hell it was, so I called you folks.”
“Any idea which room, sir?”
“Directly above me, Officer.”
“Alright, sir, I’ll have a look-see…” said Withers with more than a touch of dubiousness in his voice.
Probably some Senator messing around with an intern again…
Withers climbed the stairs and reached the room above Bernstein’s. He knocked on the door. “Metro Police. Everything alright?”
When he got no response, his guard started to go up even more. He knocked again, louder this time, and called quite loudly, not caring about anyone’s reputation, but simply doing his duty as an officer of the law. “Metro Police! Open up, please!”
Again, receiving no response, he called for backup on his handset. “Six Zero, this is Echo Twelve. Requesting backup, over.”
“Roger, Echo Twelve. Six Zero sending backup.”
A muffled cry sounded from the room in front of him.
“Six Zero, Echo Twelve, I’m going in. Get that backup moving.”
Every nerve in his body tuned to its maximum sensitivity, honed by years of training, Withers drew back and kicked the thin wooden door just above the lock with the heel of his boot.
The door collapsed like a sack of flour and Withers ran in, gun drawn, and safety off.
But the gun did not stop the bullet from the M-1 that pierced Withers’ armor.
“Officer down, request assi….Offi….cer….down….”