Zombies! Episode 3 - Love Bites (4 page)

The zombie launched itself from out of the
shadows and grabbed Culph around the waist. Al stumbled forward,
away from the fray, while Culph tried in vain to recover. Off
balance, the zombie had all of the advantage. It sank its teeth
into his arm, tearing viciously at the woven material of his
sleeve.

His sleeve held.

This infuriated the zombie no end. When its
teeth came back with only fibers, it bit him again. And again. Al
moved forward to help, but Culph called him off angrily. The last
thing he wanted to see was a friend and partner bitten by a zombie.
That's what had happened to Heron.

Twisting his body so that the zombie was
forced to begin work on a fresh part of his arm, he managed to
wrest his pistol from the holster. He'd dropped the rifle when he'd
realized that he'd never be able to bring it to bear. Tugging his
arm free, he grabbed the thing by its own one arm and pushed it
forward into a shelving unit. Boxes tumbled forward as the unit
moved. Still holding his adversary's arm, Culph thrust the gun
forward and fired twice into its eye. It crumpled to the floor.

Trying to get his breathing under control,
Culph looked down at it. He was still holding it by the wrist but
tossed it away as he suddenly realized that, though it only had one
arm, it was the wrong arm.

"Al…" he turned to see Al beating off a third
zombie with a broom. If it hadn't been so terrifying, it would have
been comical. There stood this six foot plus black guy with muscles
on his muscles and he was poking a broom handle at a frail undead
thing. Tears streamed down the poor cop's face and he was
whimpering as he fought.

Whipping a taser from his belt, Culph stepped
in and gave the zombie a jolt. It may not have reacted to the pain
of a beating or a gunshot wound, but it definitely did
not
like electricity. The thing jumped and shuddered, trying in vain to
get control of itself. Culph kicked it clear and then shot it in
the head.

"Jesus," Al breathed, heading up the stairs
backwards. He still held the broom out ahead of him like a
talisman. "Jesus…jesus…jesus…"

Culph followed him up the stairs and out of
the basement, closing the door behind him. Once clear of the danger
area, he pulled off his head gear and gloves. Gritting his teeth,
he dialed on his cell phone and ordered what he termed a
sweep
team
.

"How many of them do you think are down
there?" Al asked, breathing heavily. As if in response to his
question, there was a thump against, the door, followed by another
and then another.

Lips as thin as paper, Culph stared at the
door. Something inside of him desperately wanted to rip it open and
let it or them out. He didn't know how many were down there but he
wanted to find out.

"Hey, man. What are you doing?"

Culph looked back at Henry, confused. Then he
noticed that his hand was on the door handle. He removed it and
shook his head. "I don't know," he said. Then he repeated it.

***

THE
building, while being a regular
Manhattan apartment building, seemed to also be the site of a high
level drug organization. The man in the suit, identified as Goran
Yuniefskiey, was the client. Two other men ran the organization and
then there were two others that provided muscle. Whenever a high
paying client wanted to meet for merchandise, the super of the
building would lock them all in the basement storeroom and
disappear. When the sale was done, he would let them out and
collect his cut. Apparently, someone involved in the sale had been
infected and must have turned during the meeting. There were five
bodies in all, none of which was the super himself. The arm had
belonged to Luis Cartega, one of the muscle men. With the super, a
man named Jeremiah Nelson, still missing, Heron ordered a search.
Until it could be determined whether or not he'd been infected,
finding him was a priority.

For his part, Culph's day ended
unsatisfactorily. He was not made part of the sweep team. Even
though his gear had held, he'd technically been bitten. The skin of
his arm was red and irritated, although unbroken. He was ordered to
the hospital for a blood test. Sitting for two and a half hours
awaiting results did nothing to ease his tension and by the time he
was cleared to go home, he was in a foul mood.

Rosie was waiting for him as they had
arranged. She'd made dinner and was all smiles as he walked through
the door. She gave him a hug and a kiss, told him how happy she was
that he'd be off the next day and they'd be able to spend it
together. She was the perfect girlfriend and he was the perfect
bastard. Nothing she said penetrated his gloom and he was snapping
at her before they even sat down.

"You had a call today, didn't you?" she
asked, turning serious. "A real call?"

Culph nodded. Rosie had grown up in the worst
part of the Bronx. She'd failed her way through public school,
dropping out at sixteen and not even bothering to get a GED. No one
worth a damn had ever paid her even the slightest bit of attention
and this smart, beautiful girl had wound up a gang man's toy. She'd
wound up getting involved in an arrest but was cleared of charges
pretty quickly. Still very young himself, Culph hadn't had the
resources or contacts to pull her completely out of that life. He
didn't know anyone who could give her a job or even a chance. So he
just kept showing up wherever she was. He wasn't obtrusive at
first. He would just wander by and say hello. Her boyfriend at the
time did not like the attention. At first, he'd issued Culph a
veiled threat. No one ever got away with that. Culph dismissed him.
Badge or no badge, he was more than a match for some gangland
punk.

So the boyfriend had tried a different
tactic. This dumb punk who thought he was tough because he carried
a gun and a bunch of other dumb punks were willing to listen to him
thought that he could get rid of Culph by beating on Rose. Culph
used his badge well. But he used his fists better. They'd come
after him once. Just once. He'd known they would. Those stupid
kids. There was a time when Culph had thought it would be hard to
take a life. That time was long gone. But so was the feeling of
elation that went with being a hero. Or maybe the fine line between
heroism and villainy had been smudged. Maybe he just didn't know
who he was anymore.

Rose pressed. He hated it when she did that.
Later, when he was more lucid, he'd realize that it was a measure
of her courage. But in the evening, after work, after fighting
zombies, he just wasn't in the mood. He screamed at her. He stood
up with his hands balled into fists and he got close to her. There
was fear in her eyes. She didn't want him to hit her again. For
that, she could have stayed with the gang.

"You didn't used to be like this, Frank," she
whispered to him, her voice both strong and weak at the same time.
"You used to know where to put your fists."

He grimaced, squeezing his hands tighter. But
he held them in check.

Rose backed away from him, her eyes on his as
if she could hold him in place like a wild dog. Her purse was on
the front table. He'd thrown his keys onto it when he'd come in. If
she'd just grabbed at her purse, the keys would have fallen and the
spell would have been broken. She was too smart for that. Pushing
the keys gently to the table surface, she grabbed up her bag and
hugged it close.

"I'm going now, Frank. I don't want to be
with you like this. You get help, okay?" And then she was out the
door and heading down the stairs.

Culph stood there, not saying anything, just
staring at the closed door. Was she gone? Could he relax now?
Slowly, he opened his hands. They'd gone completely white and his
fingers were stiff. There were red lines where his nails had bitten
into his palms. Truth to tell, he didn't even really remember what
she'd said. The roar of the blood in his ears had been deafening.
The important thing was that he hadn't hit her. Somehow, he'd
managed to shut down completely. It almost didn't matter that he
was sure she was gone forever. That was probably for the best.

It was only a couple of minutes later when he
was breathing more regularly and reaching into his jacket to take
out his gun and put it away. There came a pounding on the door. For
just a moment, Culph was afraid it was Rose. His adrenaline was
still high. He still couldn't trust himself. If she wanted to
reconcile, it would be better to wait a day.

"Cop, you in there?" a man's voice
called.

He went quickly and opened the door. Once of
his neighbors stood just outside. He didn't know the man's name,
wasn't even sure which apartment he lived in. But he had this
overwhelmed look on his face and exhaled fiercely when Culph opened
the door.

"You're a cop, right? There's some girl
getting mugged in the alley."

Damn!
"Call 911."

Then he was out the door and down the stairs.
He couldn't even hope that it was some nameless, faceless fifty
year old victim. When he got to the alley, he knew he would see
Rose.

And he did. But the rest of the scene was a
nice surprise. She was pressed up against the building, cowering
between two dumpsters. Four men were approaching her, moving in
slowly. Three of them could have been the same person for what they
wore and the way they acted. They were dressed in dark denim and
grey hoodies. The hoods were up and the draw strings drawn. One of
them wore sunglasses even though it was nighttime. The fourth man,
however, was what drew Culph's attention. He was a big guy, dressed
in a dark green overcoat. He had his head down but Culph could see
a fat face and a bushy beard. He also wore dark glasses but they
couldn't hide the truth.

One of the other three men held the zombie on
a leash. It was made of a long strip of leather, a third of which
was stapled along a run of pipe. Culph wasn't sure how long the
pipe was but it was long enough to keep the zombie away from its
keeper. He was so astounded at first to see these three men taking
a zombie for a walk like some pet that he missed a step.
Fortunately, they were just as surprised by him.

The keeper nudged the zombie toward
Culph.

"Is he the only weapon you've got?" Culph
asked looking straight through the dark glasses.

The three men laughed. "Why don't you give
him a kiss?"

Culph chuckled a bit, too, then pulled out
his gun and fired. The zombie dropped like a stone. For a moment,
everything was frozen in place as the three men tried to make sense
of what had just happened. Then, even before Culph could tell them
they were under arrest, they bolted down the alley and disappeared
into the city.

Rose stood looking at the zombie on the
ground, a look of pure disgust on her face.

Culph came to her and put his arms around
her. "Are you all right?"

She pushed him away, not even afraid of him
anymore. "All right? What are you, a god damned hero now?"

He crossed his brows but he dared not hit her
here out in the street. The sirens were already wailing in the
distance.

Smacking him in the shoulder, she cried, "Do
you think this was some romantic gesture, paying a bunch of guys to
attack me with that…that
thing
just so you could rescue
me?"

"Rose…"

"No way, Frank. You're too sick for me." And
she stalked off down the alley, right in the same direction as her
would-be muggers.

He wanted to follow her but he couldn't leave
the zombie. Frustrated, he pulled his phone out and dialed a
number. "Hey, it's Culph. You're never going to believe this."

***

LIKE
John Arrick, Shawn Rudd also had
a date. At least, he hoped he had a date. He'd been out of jail for
two days (three if you counted the afternoon of his release) and
hadn't had the opportunity to go and see Marcus. In fact, he hadn't
even spoken with Marcus since encountering the zombie three weeks
before. For all Marcus knew, Shawn had just abandoned him. But it
was Friday. Shawn could stay out a little late and get away with
it. Marcus would be leaving a little early and their times should
coincide nicely.

He wasn't able to bolt out of class, though.
It was his first day back and he needed to see each teacher about
the missing work. So far, the load had been light. Apparently it
hadn't taken too long for word of the zombie attacks to get around
the city and people had started barricading themselves in their
homes. That all worked out for Shawn. It had
all
worked out
for Shawn.

Two weeks before, that detective had come to
see him again. He'd told Shawn that he thought he'd done the right
thing. He could see that now. Of course, Shawn had to play up the
act.
Like I needed
you
to tell me that
. But he had
needed to hear it and it had lifted a tremendous weight off of his
chest. Shawn was not a fighter. He was not in a gang despite the
fact that two of the guys he'd grown up with had joined. He still
saw one of them on occasion. The other one was dead. The day he'd
seen that zombie, something inside of him had just sort of switched
on. He didn't know whether it was righteousness or self
preservation. What he didn't tell anyone, not even the detective,
was that killing the zombie had been automatic. He'd done it
without thought. But killing the victim…the woman…that had been a
conscious decision. He'd actually taken three seconds to think
through the consequences of smashing her head in with the pipe. And
he'd done it anyway.