Free Down the Road: The Fall of Austin by Bowie Ibarra

floor,
but the level was nowhere as vast as the bottom three. After having
raced past the antique portraits of the Texas governors on the
fourth floor, the teams moved down the stairs to the third
floor.
    Both teams secured various administrative
rooms before waiting by the balcony entrance to the large chambers
where the Texas senators and House of Representatives met. Fireteam
Nickson was standing by the balcony doors of the House chambers,
while Fireteam Arnold was standing near the locked balcony doors of
the senate chambers. There had been no resistance thus far. The
team leaders felt peculiar standing near the locked balcony
door.
    “Senate security room clear,” Spc. Goodson
said, walking from the small office near the balcony door
entrance.
    “House security room locked,” Spc. Rodriguez
said.
    Both fireteam leaders ordered their
lockpicking specialists, Knight and Garrison, to pick the locks of
the antique balcony doors. They were hoping to get a glimpse of any
trouble that might be within.
    Both lock experts opened the antique locks
with ease, and both teams entered the rooms.
    On the House side, Fireteam Nickson spread
out across the balcony and looked over the railing to the House
chambers below. They saw no threats, Viral or otherwise, in the
balcony or the chambers.
    “House chamber clear,” Sgt. Nickson
stated.
    “Nickson!” came an urgent call from Sgt.
Arnold. “We need you guys over here on the double!”
    The Nickson fireteam heard the message and
moved to the senate chambers. Passing the portraits of governors on
the third floor rotunda, they moved tactically into the hallway,
taking up positions as they scrambled to the wide open senate
balcony doors.
    Spc. Talltree, the point man, observed things
were all clear and motioned for his comrades to advance into the
balcony of the senate chambers. They moved in, peering over the
edge.
    A small group of senators had barricaded
themselves on the podium. Stacks of chairs and tables—as well as
senators brandishing large pieces of wood—were defending the hold.
Several bodies lay strewn on portions of the barricade, their heads
bashed in and turned to mush.
    Along the senate floor, three separate groups
of Virals were kneeling on the floor. The Virals were tearing the
bodies at their knees to pieces and eating them in an orgy of
blood-spattered gore. Pools of blood and mounds of flesh, tissue,
and sanguine organs were scattered all around them, as if they were
picking out pieces and hoarding them for later. The fiends were
slowly dining on every inch of the bodies. Clothing was torn away
and blood, flesh, and bone were exposed and being consumed by the
monsters, like vultures tearing flesh away from a deer lying
bloated on the side of a Texas road, having been hit by a car in
the night.
    Spc. Garrison threw up on his combat boots.
The horrific image made him think and feel as if the meat the
virals were eating was in his own mouth.
    Fireteam Nickson noticed Arnold’s fireteam
crouching at different sections of the balcony and picking off the
Virals with well-placed bullets. Immediately, Nickson’s team took
up positions and began raining bullets indiscriminately on the
suspected Virals.
    Still nauseous, Garrison stood and watched by
the doorway, protecting the backs of his comrades. It was a
convenient way to not look at the disgusting gorefest below.
    It was a good thing, too. As his comrades
were firing away, leveling Virals with the skill of trained
killers, two people turned the corner of the rotunda and headed to
Garrison’s position.
    “Stop right there!” Garrison shouted,
straining to be heard over the gunfire. None of the advancing
people acknowledged the command, and continued drawing closer.
    Virals.
    His automatic weapon joined in the glorious
cacophony of gunfire. Their weapons of war were singing like metal
demons in a satanic chorus of pain. Metal slugs from Garrison’s
weapon busted the skull, face, and chest of the first