Moments of suspense ticked away while the occupants of the room waited for the door to be closed. Agent #1 reached the door and started to pull it closed, but arms stretched through the opening and pulled him outside the room.
The President screamed, “Close the door”.
Agent #2 closed the door and locked it while moaning continued to emanate from the other side of the door. Several sets of female eyes widened as President Obama turned to look at the oil soaked body on the floor. After a short moment he stumbled back against the wall, rubbing his face uncontrollably as if something was covering it.
It was at that moment he realized what had happened and who was under the oil that covered the body. Placing an index finger against his forehead the President rubbed slowly while he sat with an amazed look on his face.
Someone asked, “Are you ok sir?”
The President nodded in the affirmative, stood up and gazed around the room as he approached the body. He had been relatively quiet during the morning events and his face communicated intently what his voice had failed to do, he was scared and concerned. He opened his mouth and said, “Is that……”, but he was interrupted by one of the ladies standing next to him.
“It’s the Republican from Texas.” A hushed mumbling from several of the ladies suddenly grew louder as the moaning outside the door increased in volume. The lady continued, “I bet he could have helped us.”
“But how could we have known who it was?” agent #2 asked. “He was covered with oil.”
Nikki, standing in the middle of the room screamed, “What, you killed a man? Why?”
Everyone in the room seemed to freeze. It was as if they did not know how to respond to the young girl. The lack of reaction continued, seconds seemed to equal an eternity. The President walked away from the body and ordered agent #2 to join him as he moved toward the door. “Get ready, we have got to see what’s happening out at the beach.” The agent pulled a pistol out of the holster hanging around his shoulder, ensured a bullet was in the chamber, wrapped his fingers around the door knob and pulled a fistful of metal towards his body.
Shining directly in the agent’s face was the bright Florida morning sunshine. Seagulls were in the air squawking at one another. Several people were standing along the shoreline, gazing toward the ocean.
The agent shouted toward the group of bystanders, “What did you see”?
A short, 20-something female who was wearing a brightly colored bathing suit ran across the sand, looked directly in the agent’s face and said, “There was a man wearing scuba gear that came up out of the water. He was covered in oil and as he walked past me that black sludge dripped off his body. It left a black strip of something behind his body; you know, like a snail leaves behind as it slides across the ground. I yelled at him but he just walked past me.”
While imitating a walking stride with a lurch she continued, “Like I mentioned – he was walking zombie-style.”
Another voice from the crowd said, “She’s right. He just walked past us and went directly into that building”, gesturing to the building the President and agent had been inside only a few minutes earlier.
“So” the agent asked, “He just walked past you without asking a question or telling you what he was going to do, right?”
“You are correct” the young female said as she shook her head. “Who was he?”
“That was the ex-President of the United States” the agent commented. “He was invited to the meeting at the request of the President so he could offer his thoughts and advice as to how the oil rig disaster could be managed.”
As the agent completed his last comment he turned and found the President down on his hands and knees prostrate on the ground.
Someone added, "And then he left the building screaming and went back into the ocean."
"But that's impossible...", the agent said. "He's dead in the building."
"Not if that was him that we saw at the building door. He moaned like he was in pain, then turned and ran back to the water", someone called out.
“But that's impossible. Mr. President, we have to get back inside and figure out what actually happened and if the oil rig leak caused this.” The President looked at the agent and mumbled, “Give me a break. The Texan had to have been temporarily insane, or maybe he inhaled some of the oil and couldn’t think straight.”
As the agent helped the President up from the ground a helicopter could be heard approaching and the two men caught a glimpse of 40-50 troops approaching the immediate area. As the troops reached the President and the other people standing with him, the look on most of the faces was one of amazement as they all seemed to realize that the soldiers had their weapons drawn – and pointed directly at the group.
Instinctively each person on the beach reacted to the military show-of-force and raised their hands into the air. Meanwhile the soldiers continued across the beach in a sprint while the helicopter circled the vicinity. The President, taking a moment to consider what should be done, gazed across the group of citizens and realized that there were several small children clinging to Mothers’ pant legs and adult couples holding hands, now many displaying an expression of disbelief on their faces.
A few moments later the soldiers stepped within a couple meters of the most powerful man in the free world. All the soldiers were obviously winded and took a moment to catch a quick breath of oxygen. Then the captain leading the soldiers stepped forward and saluted the President.
President Obama acknowledged the leader and said, “Captain, catch your breath and then give me a status report of what is happening.”
The captain nodded and pursed his lips, took a couple short deep breaths, inhaled one more long controlled breath and then said, “Mr. President, you are in danger. Please follow me away from the shoreline before the thing comes back out of the ocean.”
This comment caught the country’s leader off guard. Now he found himself trying to control his own breath and said, “What do you mean the thing?”
***
Thanks for reading my posts. If you like this and feel its worth more installments post a comment or send me an email then I'll work on it. Take care! ;-)
I like this post more than the others. Please write another!
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