You've killed him

The drone of the jets and the shaking of the explosions drowned out Tobey's own screaming. He was not a soldier; he was unprepared; his head and eardrums were pulsating with pain as shockwaves shook his body.

Silence descended as the dust settled. Tobey stayed still, his ears ringing loudly. The only sounds that broke the cloud were his heartbeat and the distant thump of bombs hitting Central Park and Times Square.

He couldn't tell how long he lay there, splayed on ripped asphalt next to burning automobiles, tanks, and the mixed bodies of the dead and survivors. He gripped his head in anticipation of more death from above as his brain burned with pressure.

A voice pierced the ringing like a nail in his skull and said, "Tobey." As he raised his eyes through the dust, it became clear that it was initially far. With his hand outstretched and his mouth bleeding, Doctor Mason Green towered over him.

Tobey took hold of it, allowing Green to lift him. It looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood spattered the destroyed walls like a Jackson Pollock canvas, indicating that nearby zombies had not escaped the explosions. Surviving buildings were set on fire, and brains and crushed organs gathered in the pockmarked roadway.

With his head whirling and his steps unstable, Tobey said, "Makes you feel sorry for Baghdad." A meter from his left foot was a severed hand, its tendons and muscles dripping, fingers lifted as though they were trying to claw their way out.

He flipped over abruptly, throwing up on the asphalt as disgust swept through him.

"It doesn't matter because there is so much bodily fluid here," Green remarked quietly. Either the violence or the gas is the source of the distaste. Since we don't seem to be impacted by the gas, I believe the former.

"Gas?" Heaving the last of his stomach contents, Tobey wheezed.

"Can you smell it?" Green took a breath and said, grinning. similar to an industrial solvent, such as ammonia or bleach. Take a whiff.

"What is that?" When his retching stopped, Tobey stood up and asked. Like nitrous oxide, the gas tingled in his nostrils, driving away the illness and bringing him back to life—not as a ruthless zombie, but alive.

As he walked through the bloodshed, Green answered, "Some chemical—I don't know what." Other zombies arose, staring at the destruction of the Air Force.

"There must be thousands dead," Tobey remarked. "Not just us—they're not infected either."

"An action that is unilateral," Green shrugged. Do you wish to rearrange the survivors?

“All right,” Tobey said, his mind heightened by the gas, which he thought was like a herbal cure. "Doctor, help me find them."

In defiance of a brutal government, they trudged past bomb craters and heaps of dead, inhaling the poisonous odors.

Jenna Gray watched jet fighters thunder over New York City from the top of the Palisades cliffs.

"What will take place?" She questioned the head of Red Shield, Nurse Zuker.

Zuker smiled and gestured across the broad Hudson River. "Watch," she said.

Bombers flew overhead, dropping their cargoes over the skyline of the uptown area. In a ruthless red haze, flames rose into the late-morning troposphere.

"No." Jenna muttered, lamenting the fall of the city she had known and loved. Incendiary columns were dropped throughout the city as F-117s thundered downtown and over Long Island.

The ground trembled somewhat, buildings swayed, and dust clouds blew. A cluster of bombs arced toward the Empire State Building, the tallest landmark in the city, which is more than fourteen hundred feet tall.

"The Empire State Building, holy shit!" cried a soldier behind Jenna. She was unable to turn away. Incredulous infantrymen gathered around her vantage position. Even Nurse Zuker, who had become used to the bloodshed in Iraq, gasped as the city collapsed.

"They won't actually do—"

Bombs exploded inside the structure after tearing into its side and penetrating its walls. A flaming spectacle erupted—its inside splintered, releasing colorful mayhem. Supports broke, impending collapse.

Behind her, a female soldier cried, "Danny." "This is just so... my husband Danny died in the World Trade Center."

The Empire State Building collapsed, just like the Twin Towers. Floors pancaked in a shower of explosions as its spire pierced the center. It fell with a slow rumble that echoed hundreds of screams as it plummeted to the ground.

With a voice full of wonder, a guardsman swore, "Goddamn." "That's it!"

For minutes, they stared at the flaming metropolis in horrified stillness. With hands at their sides and eyes fixed on the smoke where the honorable Empire State, formerly a sign impervious to enormous apes and the passage of time, had once stood, the dozen Teaneck Armory volunteers, including Jenna, formed a mournful phalanx.

With her morale clearly crushed, Zuker declared, "We'll search Washington Heights and North Harlem for uninfected survivors, especially military personnel." "Come on."

With the volunteers crammed into its spacious cargo compartment, Jenna boarded a military Humvee. Although the majority of the troops had moved to Fort Lee, a small contingent of the 51st New Jersey remained at Washington Heights. The car sped across the George Washington Bridge and swerved into the streets of uptown, which had been blasted out.

A improvised medical station existed on a road that was charred and dotted with bullets when she disembarked. Zuker spoke to her volunteers.

With her pale face tense against the sight of the wounded moaning on the concrete, she stated sharply, "Jersey City Armory volunteers will stay to aid the injured." "Teaneck volunteers, look for survivors who are still alive on those two streets and bring them back." Even if the nerve gas is diluted, we won't stay.

Jenna and a few nurses went along a street, its name gone, its sign destroyed. They plodded forward, followed by two uninterested troops who fingered M-16s.

There were no survivors found. No one survived, yet there were bodies all over the place, some burned or torn beyond recognition, others shot by the Army or eaten by zombies.

A faint voice called, "Miss?" Three figures were approaching when Jenna turned. One, wearing an American soldier's uniform smeared with blood, repeated, "Miss?" "Help us, we're in pain."

An escorting soldier brandished his M-16 and yelled, "Zombie!" When he fired, a barrage of automatic shots knocked the center figure back.

"No! No! We're not zombies! Don't shoot! The other two sobbed and fell to their knees with their hands up. On the ground, their colleague seized.

The second escort yelled, "You fool, they're Vermont soldiers." "You've murdered him."

Bullets had broken the shot man's neck and chest, ruptured his aorta, and he was dead. The nurses hurried forward, and his friends dropped their hands.

One survivor remarked, "This is Mike Benko; I'm Brant DiCamillo." "The two 87th Armored... He isn't.

The gunman stated, shocked and apologetic, "I'm sorry."

With a harsh tone, Mike Benko muttered, "Just take us back." His face was pale, and blood poured from his gashed leg. "Go, Charles. He's dead and wasn't with us anyhow."

Jenna offered to hold his injured left leg and said, "Let me help you." "I mean, help you."

"I'm grateful, miss," Mike muttered. The group returned, with Brant following, his arm sliced.

"We would have witnessed it—no one is left alive," Mike remarked.

"That's what we thought," Jenna said. "By the way, my name is Jenna Gray."

He replied, "Mike Benko, 87th Vermont, 1st Battalion, Company B." Or the remnants of B Company. I'm probably the last.

An escort called out, "Come on." "Let's go—the nerve gas is thicker down there."

The survivors, nurses, and soldiers withdrew to the Humvees. The final American units left New York City as the sun sank hours later. They lost Manhattan. The zombies were stronger than ever after the nerve gas and bombardment failed.

The only thing the US could do was prepare to defend.