The Zulu Virus Chronicles Boxset (Books 1-3)

by Steven Konkoly

  Bower clicked the radio transmitter attached to his tactical vest. “Unit Eight approaching four one five on Maidenfield.”

  Dispatch responded briefly. “Copy, Eight.”

  A few moments later, they pulled up to the address given to them by dispatch. The people started to move in the direction of the patrol vehicle, but Bower kindly asked them over the Interceptor’s megaphone to stay put. They complied, which was a good start to the call.

  “You do the honors,” said Bower. “I’ll cover you.”

  Bower raised the M4 rifle off his lap, keeping it below the line of the windshield or door windows.

  “Yep,” said David, opening the door.

  He stepped onto the curb, leaving the door open in case he needed to make a quick departure. It also gave his partner an unobstructed view of the house in question. After taking a few steps toward the neighboring yard, he activated his flashlight and directed its beam at the group waiting for him.

  “Can I have you form a line and lift your shirts a few inches above your waistlines?” said David, purposefully keeping his other hand away from his pistol to avoid spooking them. “We’ve had some strange encounters tonight. I just need to do a quick visual for weapons.”

  The group immediately complied with his request. Another good sign.

  “Do a quick three-sixty, and we’re good to go,” said David.

  He watched their waistlines closely, seeing nothing that concerned him.

  “Sorry about that. Been a strange night,” said David before deactivating his flashlight and approaching the group. “Who called 911?”

  “I did,” said a normal-looking guy in jeans and an oversized Colts T-shirt. “Their boy banged on our door. He was yelling about the mom beating up his dad with a baseball bat.”

  “The mom?” said David.

  “That’s what he said,” said the guy.

  David’s mind immediately thought about his ex-wife. Would she have attacked Joshua instead of her boyfriend if he hadn’t taken their son on the camping trip? Until right now he hadn’t considered that possibility. What the fuck was happening out here? He needed to stay focused. They had a raving madwoman inside the house, possibly holding her husband hostage.

  “Where is the boy now?” said David.

  “He’s inside our house,” said the guy, nodding at the home immediately to their left. “My wife is treating his injuries. Mostly scrapes on his arms and face.”

  “Does he need emergency medical attention?” said David. “EMS is strapped tonight, but if you think he needs it, I’ll make the call.”

  “I think he’ll be fine. I don’t know about the dad, though.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” said David. “What about the rest of you? What’s going on?”

  “My husband and I live across the street,” said a young woman in pajamas.

  “We heard the commotion,” said the husband.

  The other guy, an older man dressed in knee-length shorts and a white tank top, added that he lived directly across the street and heard yelling.

  “Did any of you see anything?” said David.

  “I saw Marcie chase the kid halfway across the lawn before turning back and slamming the front door shut,” said the older guy.

  “We just heard the yelling,” said the young woman, holding her husband’s arm. “It was really freaky.”

  “It’s not the first time we’ve heard some strange shit,” said the older guy. “There was some kind of big argument in one of the backyards on the street behind me. Doors slamming. Not sure what the hell happened.”

  “What about the dad inside the house?” said David, focusing on the next-door neighbor. “The boy told you he had locked himself in a bathroom?”

  “Right. Upstairs. Master bathroom,” said the neighbor.

  “He just left the boy to fend for himself against the mother?” said David.

  “I don’t know. It sounds like things went bad really fast.”

  David nodded. “Any guns in the house?”

  Nothing had come up registered through the town for the address or any of the names associated with it—not that it really made a difference. Only concealed-carry permit holders were required to be on record. There were probably a thousand unrecorded firearms for every concealed-carry permit in the state. Maybe more.

  “All right. I need all of you to go back inside your homes. We’ll take it from here,” said David. “No matter what you hear inside the house or in the yard, do not go outside to investigate. And whatever you do, keep the kid inside.”

  The young woman turned to the neighbor. “We’d be happy to help you with Kyle while they sort this out. I’m a licensed clinical social worker. I’ve worked with kids before.”

  “We could use the help right now. We’re dealing with a ten-year-old and a six-year-old, too. We don’t have enough hands to keep them away from the windows,” said the neighbor.

  “Sounds like a plan,” said David. “Remember. Stay inside.”

  Several seconds later, he was back at the Interceptor. “Ready to go inside?”

  “Not really,” said Bower. “What did they say?”

  “Nothing we didn’t already know, except that the kid has a bunch of scratches on his face and arms, and his mother chased him halfway across the yard before going back in the house.”

  “It’s really the mom?” said Bower.

  “That’s what I said. Old man across the street confirmed it.”

  “Maybe the dad went after the kid, and mom got protective. Took a bat to him, then chased after the boy.”

  David shook his head. “I don’t know. Why would the mother stop and go back inside?”

  “None of this makes sense,” said his partner.

  Bower got out of the SUV and shut the door before walking in front of the vehicle to join him. David retrieved the keys and locked the Interceptor. The last thing they needed was for someone to take off with it, stranding them out here. Several attempts to steal or break into department vehicles had occurred over the past forty-eight hours.

  “Front or back?” said Bower, slinging the rifle over his shoulder.

  Department policy strictly prohibited officers from carrying service rifles into personal residences, but given the circumstances, they had chosen to interpret that policy to mean carrying the rifle in a ready-to-immediately-shoot condition. Not that it would take Bower long to put the rifle into action. He’d flipped it around in one swift motion several times tonight when things heated up.

  “We pretend to walk around back, then hit the front. Together,” said David, having no intention of splitting them up.

  “Damn right, together,” said Bower.

  “I kick the door in. We move upstairs quickly and carefully, with me in front. You’re watching our backs.”

  “Works for me.”

  “Call it in,” said David.

  “Dispatch, Unit Eight. Both officers entering home on Maidenfield.”

  “Copy, Eight,” replied the radio.

  They walked up the driveway, keeping a careful watch on the closed curtains above the side-loading garage. When they reached the corner of the garage, they drew their pistols and slid along the front of the house, staying below the home’s windows. After stepping up onto the concrete front porch, they stacked up next to the door and listened for a few seconds—hearing nothing inside. He hated this part.

  “Ready?” whispered David.

  Bower tapped his shoulder, prompting David to step in front of the door and land a hard, boot-bottom kick next to the door handle. The door blasted inward a few inches, immediately stopped by a secondary locking device.

  “Shit,” he muttered, stepping a few feet back.

  It took him less than a second to identify a chain lock above the handle as the culprit. He squared off against the door and kicked as high as he could, snapping the chain and launching the door against the inside wall. David moved swiftly into the living room, sweeping his pistol acros
s the room and stopping on the entrance to the kitchen directly in front of him.

  The side of a stainless steel refrigerator faced him, covered in business cards and handwritten notes held up by magnets. Beyond the refrigerator, a long black counter extended to the far corner of the kitchen. He tried to visualize the space beyond the doorway, but without seeing the rest of the kitchen, the mental exercise was useless. It didn’t matter. They were going straight upstairs to the master bathroom. Searching the rest of the ground level would just give whoever was hiding upstairs more time to come up with a plan to ambush them.

  “Cover the kitchen,” he whispered, shifting his aim to the top of the stairs.

  Bower moved behind him, aiming into the kitchen, as David stepped toward the bottom of the carpeted stairway next to the kitchen door. The house was entirely too quiet given what had transpired here ten minutes ago. He started up the stairs, constantly shifting his aim between the railing banisters above his head to the top of the stairs. When his head reached a point about a foot below the level of the second floor, he paused and turned to Bower, who was right behind him.

  “I’m gonna do a quick peek topside,” said David.

  Before Bower responded, gunfire exploded through the banister’s white spindles. A searing pain creased David’s forehead, followed by a hammer blow to his upper back, which knocked him flat against the stairs. Bower let out an agonized scream as bullet after bullet cracked above and around David. He jerked his head upward in time to see a pistol emerge between the spindles. Instead of trying to squeeze off a shot at the blurred figure behind the pistol, he hurled himself down the stairs, bringing Bower down with him. Several more bullets snapped past them, the gunman frantically trying to hit them from a hopelessly odd angle.

  The gunfire stopped as soon as they crashed into the family room, a tangled mess of bloodied arms and legs. David caught movement at the top of the stairs and raised his right hand, relieved to see that it still had his pistol. A woman dressed in gray sweatpants and a pink V-neck T-shirt stood above them at the top of the stairs, holding a pistol and a silver aluminum baseball bat. The slide on the pistol was locked back, indicating that she had expended the entire magazine—a fact that appeared completely lost on her.

  He rolled off his partner and straightened out on his back, holding the pistol in a two-handed grip above his midsection. Malevolent eyes glared at him beyond the pistol’s sight picture, leaving little doubt in his mind what would happen.

  “Drop the gun! Drop the bat! Stay where you are,” he yelled.

  “Fucking shoot her,” groaned Bower. “She’s gone.”

  He’d give her one more chance.

  “Last—” he started, when the woman broke into a sprint down the stairs with the bat raised over her head.

  David’s first shot went a few inches wide, striking the wall behind her head. Fuck it. He aimed center mass and pressed the trigger repeatedly, her body jerking left and right. Bower’s gun joined the shooting frenzy by the time she got three-quarters of the way down the stairs. Within the span of several seconds, the two officers fired a combined total of thirty-four hollow-point bullets at the crazed woman, most of them hitting her in the torso or arms.

  The woman slowed under the hail of bullets, blood spraying the carpet and walls all around her, before she teetered backward against the stairs. David lay there frozen, the gun’s barrel smoking at the end of his hand. He’d never seen anything that devastating happen to a human being—not even in a movie.

  “Fuck,” muttered Bower. “What the hell was wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know,” said David. “Can you reload?”

  “Negative. My arm is fucked,” said Bower, grunting the words.

  “Hold on,” said David, then reloaded his pistol.

  He depressed the pistol’s slide release, chambering a round, and pushed himself up. A quick scan of the family room and kitchen revealed no additional threats. Bower’s empty pistol remained pointed toward the stairs, a small pool of blood soaking the carpet under his left shoulder. From what David could tell, his partner had been hit in the upper arm. The bleeding didn’t look urgent, but he wasn’t a paramedic. Bullets had a strange way of causing unseen damage.

  “Lay your pistol across your chest,” said David. “I’m going to drag you deeper into the living room.”

  David holstered his own pistol and gripped the drag handle on Bower’s tactical vest with both hands, pulling him across the thick carpet and stopping in the middle of the sparsely furnished room. He wanted to get them away from the doorway leading to the kitchen, and any more lethal surprises. His next job was to get Bower an ambulance.

  “Dispatch, Unit Eight. Shots fired at 2322 Maidenfield. Request backup and immediate medical response. Officer down.”

  “Officer down at 2322 Maidenfield. Request all available units to assist. Diverting EMS,” said the dispatcher. “Eight, who got hit, and what’s the status?”

  “It’s Bower. He took a bullet to the upper left arm,” said David. “I can’t tell how bad overall.”

  “Copy. Stand by,” said the dispatcher.

  While he waited for a response, he examined the arm. Could be a through and through, but it was impossible to tell without tearing away the sleeve. He started to search Bower’s belt for a utility knife.

  “Keep an eye on the stairs,” grumbled Bower, gripping his wrist.

  “Right. Right,” said David, aiming his pistol toward the stairs. “How are you doing?”

  “Hurts like a motherfucker, but I think I’m good,” said Bower. “You took one to the forehead, by the way.”

  “What?” said David, touching his forehead.

  His hand came back smeared with blood.

  “I feel fine,” said David. “How bad is it?”

  “Barely bleeding. Looks like it just grazed you. Lucky son of a bitch. A half inch over, and they’d be cleaning your brains off the wall,” said Bower, grimacing. “Gonna be one hell of a scar, though.”

  He could live with a scar.

  The radio squawked. “Backup and EMS en route. Closest backup unit two minutes out. EMS five minutes out.”

  David responded, “Eight copies. We’re stable for now. Look for us inside the front door to the right, on the floor.”

  “Copy. Passing that to responding units. Hang on, Eight.”

  He took his hand off the radio transmitter and steadied his pistol, which was visibly shaking.

  “You should check on the dad,” said Bower. “If she had a gun, he might be in worse shape than me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Rob. You’re stuck with me until backup arrives. They can unfuck the rest of this situation.”

  “What was she thinking?” muttered Bower.

  “Something was wrong with her,” said David. “She looked at me with a hatred I’ve never seen before. Like I’d been her personal tormentor for life, and this was her chance to settle the score.”

  “Fucking crazy,” said Bower.

  A police siren wailed in the distance, getting louder by the second. He couldn’t help but think about his ex-wife. Was this what had happened to her? She just turned into a homicidal maniac and tried to kill her boyfriend? David shook his head. He was heading home after this. Joshua was his top priority now. His only priority. And he didn’t care if it meant the end of his career. If things kept moving in the direction they’d seen tonight, it wouldn’t matter. The Westfield Police Department would be swallowed by an unstoppable wave of violence.

  Chapter 19

  Emma Harper sat holding her husband on the kitchen floor, listening closely for any more signs of chaos outside. Someone had thrown a sizable garden rock through one of their front windows while they were eating dinner, which kicked off an endless string of mayhem outside. Gunshots, nearby and distant, could be heard every ten to fifteen minutes now. The screaming and yelling had become background noise to the ceaseless call of police sirens. Tires screeched and cars raced up and down the street. Sh
attering glass didn’t even cause them to look up anymore. It sounded like a riot had broken out nearby, but every time they peeked through their shades, the street didn’t look any different than any other busy Friday night in a Broad Ripple neighborhood.

  A gunshot startled both of them. This time, it sounded like it came from their block. An inhuman screech followed.

  “That’s it. We’re out of here,” said Jack, standing up. “We’ll head to my parents’.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go outside, Jack,” said Emma. “Maybe we should stay here until it’s light out again. Leave when we can at least see what’s going on around us.”

  A distant, staccato burst of gunfire paused their conversation. Emma took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to calm an overwhelming sense of panic. They had no idea what was happening around them. Every method of communication available to them had been cut off, leaving them figuratively and literally in the dark. They had chosen to turn off all of the lights in their house to avoid attracting attention.

  “It’s getting worse out there. I’m afraid if we don’t leave now, we might not get another chance,” said Jack, now pacing. “Or a mob might break into our house. I don’t know. I just want to get out of here.”

  Jack was starting to scare her. He never freaked out about stuff, to the point where he came off as cluelessly laid-back. If Jack was this worried about their situation, they needed to get out of here.

  “Then we go,” said Emma. “We can be on the road immediately. We both have spare clothes at your parents’.”

  Her husband looked deep in thought.

  “Honey?”

  “Let’s pack up as much food, water and other survival stuff as we can in the Jeep,” said Jack. “Who knows what the situation will be in northern Indiana. It wouldn’t take much to empty the stores in a panic.”

  “We don’t have any survival gear,” said Emma.

  “I mean like our hiking stuff. We can turn our backpacks into those bug-away bags that all of the preppers talk about.

  “Bug-out bags,” she said, smirking.