Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (9 page)

“
Let’s get out of here!” Roy screeched from inside the car, unexpectedly drawing the attention of the frenzied, blood-covered mob.

Stephen watched nearly every single head from the disgusting mob turn and look at him hungrily. Only a few seemed too engrossed in their task to notice. Roy squeaked in fear several yards behind him, and the squad door slammed shut, followed by the sound of the doors locking. As if that was what broke the spell, hundreds of voices roared in unison at Stephen with an intense hatred and unswayable hunger. They rose and began moving his way.

Inside the house I finally located the stairway that stretched up out of sight into the deepening darkness.

“
It’s dark as hell up there even though the sun is still up,” I told a small cat that scurried past me down the steps.

Seeing the light switch, I turned it on and began making my way up the creaking wooden stairway. Nearing the top of the stairs, I heard a loud thumping sound coming from a room at the back of the hallway that had furniture piled in front of it.

“
Javier, this is the Joliet Police. I need you to step away from the door. I am coming inside. I need to talk to you,” I said in a loud, commanding voice.

Inside the room the thumping sound stopped and now was replaced by a deep growl.

Nice, now this bastard thinks he has beer muscles or something
. I frowned.
Well I’m not some skinny teenager he can smack around.

I started to grab furniture, tossing aside the pieces, and soon reached the door.

“
Okay fucker,” I growled when something hit heavily on the other side of the door. “If you want to play, let’s do this!”

I ripped open the door and nearly got my face bitten off when Javier lashed out at me with his gnashing teeth. I could see the dried blood crusted around his mouth as his teeth clacked shut inches from my face. The only thing that stopped that from happening was my left forearm that came up and caught Javier under his jaws in the throat. I blasted him between the eyes with my right fist, knocking him back into the room. Adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream as I now realized that when Javier was knocked back, he had a hold of my radio mic cord. Now I stared at him holding one piece while the rest sat useless on my gun belt.

“
Fuck me!”

Javier dropped the cord and came at me again but seemed a tad slower this time. Maybe it was from booze or drugs, or maybe it was the punch to the head.

Suspecting that he needed another, I crushed him with a combo right in the mouth.

As I mentally patted myself on the back, my new sparring partner Javier caught me off guard by
not
being knocked out cold and lunged at me, almost getting me into a bear hug.

Apparently Javier could take a punch!

Thinking fast, I redirected his momentum and pushed his head clear through the nearby plaster wall.

Now that had to hurt!

I figured that I now would be stuck babysitting this drunk fucker all night at the hospital. That thought vanished when Javier began pulling his head from the hole in the wall.

“
What the fuck?” Now I was getting pissed. How was he still moving?

I could see bits of plaster and slivers of wood packed into several cuts on his face as he pulled himself free and looked hungrily back at me. I tried to talk to Javier, but he wasn’t hearing me. He must have been on PCP or some other drug which was helping deaden the pain. I grabbed Javier, gave him a leg sweep and knocked him to the floor. I tried to pin him to the floor and proceeded to handcuff his left wrist. Javier’s right arm was trapped under his body, and every time I reached for it, he tried to bite me. That, of course, just earned him several punches to various parts of the body and head. They sadly did not gain me one bit of compliance on Javier’s part.

He was going to be one sore motherfucker when his high wore off. I smashed him yet again with a forearm to the back of his head.

I noticed that Javier was burning up from an apparent fever and wondered if it was from the drugs or if he was really sick. Then he began to convulse so violently that I got off of him completely. Fear of lawsuits nowadays made cops very nervous when it came to claims of excessive force. There wasn’t a single lawyer who wouldn’t make the bullshit case that I was using excessive force in this instance. So I backed up into the hallway near the top of the stairs, and my spider senses kicked in, telling me to draw my service pistol. Seconds later from the dark room, Javier rushed me once again. I tripped over some of the furniture that was outside the door and fell backwards. Javier landed on top of me and immediately tried to bite me in the face and neck. His clawing hands grabbed me by the throat and began inching his head closer to me. Again I forced Javier’s head up, but he was a tad overweight, and my adrenaline dump was fading. His teeth edged closer to my neck. In desperation, I pressed my Glock into his ribcage and put two rounds into his side. He kept coming.

What the fuck!
My ears were screaming from the loud reports.
No effect? I should have stayed in bed this morning
.

His snarling, drooling mouth was now mere inches from my jugular, I promptly went berserk. It was a bad habit I had during brawls that I blamed on my Norwegian Viking ancestors. A wall of red filled my vision, and all weariness fled as strength flooded my body. Roaring like a lion, I picked my opponent up off me and slammed him head first into the stairwell banister, which broke under his weight. Stalking up to Javier, who was trying to get up again, I grabbed the banister post and snapped it free. Using it like a war club, I proceeded to beat Javier’s skull to a bloody pulp. It seemed like hours when I finally regained my senses and noticed that he was no longer moving. Judging from the amount of blood and brain matter splattered everywhere, he damn well better not be.

Dropping the blood-splattered chunk of wood to the floor, I shook with fatigue and sank down into a nearby chair as the last traces of adrenaline left my system. After a few minutes passed, I looked over at the mangled person I was supposed to arrest.

“
Shit,” I sighed. “I better call my supervisor because I think I just killed you.”

Getting up, I grabbed Javier’s wrist and checked for a pulse. Yep, he was dead.

I retrieved my handgun from the floor and holstered it. They took our guns after a shooting, and I probably wouldn’t see it for a while. I then made my way back downstairs and out to my squad car to use my cell phone. As I stood there listening to recordings of “all circuits are currently busy”, I was thinking of the “Officer of the Year” award that I had in my grasp and had probably just forfeited due to the mess I made of Javier’s skull. I was sure photos would be all over the paper amid cries of police brutality.

Hanging up the phone in frustration, I opened my trunk to retrieve my crime scene tape, hoping to rope off the area for the evidence technicians and the ensuing crowd that was sure to show up.

“
Man, my trunk is a mess,” I muttered as I shoved my gear around looking for the tape.

In the back of my mind, it registered that I no longer heard squad sirens, and without radio communications I had no idea what was or was not happening out there. I wanted to try the cell phone again, and when I turned to walk back to the driver’s side door of my squad, I jumped back when a car skidded to a stop next to me. I watched an attractive Hispanic woman get out of the gray Toyota Camry and start to run to the red brick grade school that was across the street.

The mostly Hispanic Columbus Elementary School had an after school program for the children of single or working parents, and I remembered that school just started up again last week. She stopped abruptly, screamed, and ran right back to me. A stumbling adult male wearing a blood-stained button up shirt and tie appeared from around the corner right behind her. The man had nasty wounds on both arms, and as he got closer, I could see he wasn’t approaching me for help. He had that same hungry, malicious look in his eyes that I was just forced to deal with a few moments ago. The woman took cover behind me, cowering in fear. I drew my pistol and told the man to stop and get on the ground. There was no response from him; in fact, he didn’t make any sound other than that damned ominous moaning sound that Javier had made.

“
Ma’am, stay back,” I said, turning back towards the woman.

When he started shambling towards me faster, ignoring my commands to stop and get on the ground, I shot him twice at center mass. Two bright red rings appeared on his chest, and I assumed that this was going to be another pain in the ass to explain, shooting an unarmed man.

Once again, I was sadly mistaken.

The two rounds that struck him dead center only made him stumble back a step or two, but then he came at me again. It was as if I had just pushed him with my hand.

“
What the fuck is going on?” I was stumped. How could someone take two Speer Gold Dot 9mm hollow points to the chest and not even say ‘ouch’?

My next shot, now at a mere five yards, struck him right between those hungry looking eyes. He dropped like a puppet with the strings just cut.

Wait a minute
, I thought, making the beginnings of a connection. Javier had taken a world class ass whooping and kept coming back for more until his head was crushed. And now this guy took two hollow points to the chest and ignored them as if they were bug bites, until I shot him between the eyes.

Get the fuck out of here! Someone please tell me these aren’t zombies!

“
This is real life, isn’t it?” I asked aloud, still puzzled. Well, if that was the case, it all could make sense, the infection, the biting, and the resistance to pain.

I shuddered when I thought how many times Javier’s teeth were about to take a chunk out of this old white boy’s ass. If bitten, I surely would have become one of them, and that was not how I planned on going out.

“
Officer, my baby is in there!” the woman behind me said in broken English, pointing at the school and snapping me out of my daydream.

“
Go wait in your car, ma’am, and lock your doors,” I told her. “It seems these people are spreading some sort of infection through biting or something.”

She gave me a description of her child, a daughter named Lucy, and a general idea where her little girl should be located in the school. I reached my squad’s trunk again. This time instead of crime scene tape, I retrieved my issued Colt M4 from its case and simply tucked my five extra magazines into my cargo pants pockets. Closing the trunk lid, I couldn’t help but pause to take a good look at the woman who was now getting into her car. Long black hair, extremely attractive with a low cut white tank top that left a large amount of cleavage showing. I ripped my gaze away from her chest and looked up right into her dark brown eyes. Giving her a little “I’m busted” smile, I turned and started jogging up to the school door.

Screw Officer of the Year, I would take a reward from her any day.

* * * * * * * *

The slamming of the car door followed by the clicking sound of the door locks engaging reminded Stephen of a hammer nailing his coffin shut. Nervous sweat rolled down his back as he began a slow walk backwards.

“
Open the door, Roy,” Stephen said calmly, hoping to convince Roy to come around. “I don’t want to have to smash out my own window.”

Stephen continued to walk backwards as screams and moans came from the huge mob heading his way.

He reached the still locked driver’s door.

“
Roy! Open the goddamn door
now
!”

Roy didn’t say a word, and he actually put on his seat belt and then closed his eyes.

“
Roy!” Stephen said, almost pleading. “I need you to unlock the door so we can leave.”

Roy, face white with fear, continued to ignore him but he did open his eyes just enough to stare in fear at the mob that was swiftly covering ground. Stephen glanced up to see what Roy was looking at, and the dozen or so destroyed vehicles and squad cars behind the mob made for a hypnotic light show. Stephen himself still had a hard time believing what he was seeing. Scores of them peeled off from the main host and smashed through the windows and doors of apartment buildings to the left and right sides of the street as they made their way towards him, almost as if they were distracted by closer prey. Cries for help erupted from the surrounding apartments that were silenced in short order.

Almost without thinking, Stephen raised his carbine and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened, and he immediately realized he had never slammed the bolt home on his fresh magazine. A brisk slap with the left palm and he was back in action. Now reacquiring his target, a large man at the front of the pack, he fired. Center mass, the target faltered in his tracks but did not fall. The mob moved ever closer and Stephen could now add smell to his sensory overload. A quick assessment and a double tap at the same moving target, and he finally went down. It looked more like he was pushed down from behind as the others caught up to him. Picking up the pace, Stephen began to fire as soon as he came on target, striking three with a quick six shot barrage. Stephen swung his rifle back to the mob’s vanguard and momentarily froze.