by Tony Baker
At around 5 p.m. or so every day, the zombies all seemed to start heading south. After the first couple of days, Harry went up to the roof; from there, he had a fairly decent view of the surrounding area. Being six stories up, he was not too concerned about being seen from the street, but he was nonetheless careful in remaining hidden.
His job had required him to be observant, to notice every nuance of his environment – searching for evidence, interviewing victims and suspects alike, noticing what was being worn, bulges in a coat that could represent a weapon. It had become second nature to take in a scene at first glance, and although Harry did not have a photographic memory, he had developed a method in which he cataloged what he saw and was able to bring it to mind fairly well when needed.
But this zombie pattern, if a pattern at all, was eluding him. He knew they moved in the late afternoon, at about the same time, and usually in the same direction. In a moment of complete frustration he remembered his first FTO, Shane O’Connor, the stereotypical Good Irish Cop, who had once told him, “You better get your fuckin’ head out your ass there, boy! You want to be a good cop someday? You keep your mouth shut, your eyes open, and you damn well better pay attention to what’s going on around you at all times!”
O’Connor’s pearls of wisdom, along with a hot, heavy, spit flying, all in your face ass chewing, had occurred after an area search on a robbery investigation; Harry had walked right past the weapon that had been used in the crime. It had been thrown in some bushes, and not easily seen, but O’Connor had found it by double-checking the rookie’s initial search.
For the rest of Harry’s tour assignment with this FTO, he was constantly challenged on his observation skills, along with a thousand other things FTOs threw at rookies. O’Connor’s favorite exercise was to allow Harry to inspect the squad car, as was normal procedure prior to going in service.
The car needed to be swept to ensure nothing illegal had been dropped by suspects, to confirm all equipment was present, that the radios worked, as did the lights and siren, and any puke had to be cleaned up. That was every rookie’s job: cleaning up puke, urine, and all matter of disgusting things left behind by the previous shift.
O’Connor would plant objects in the car, and if Harry did not find them he was privileged to spend the first couple hours of the shift listening to the shortcomings of all rookies, and “why they had believed their mommas when they told them they could be cops,” along with references to Harry’s inbred ancestry resulting in his level of intelligence being equal to pond slime.
Harry had been surprised to get one of the highest evaluations O’Connor had ever written, according to the division captain. O’Connor had retired a year after Harry had passed probation, and he had been invited to his going away party at a seedy Irish pub in the middle of the Tenderloin, of course. He remembered O’Connor coming up to him, grasping his hand firmly, and saying it had been an honor to work with him.
Harry had not only deeply respected Shane O’Connor, but during his own time as an FTO had utilized much of the training techniques O’Connor had. Not as much yelling, screaming, ancestry references or ass chewing, but nonetheless very similar. Rookies still got to clean out the puke, but that was a rite of passage – one other thing O’Connor took great pleasure imparting on many occasions. Harry had even been convinced at one point that Shane O’Connor was somehow related to R. Lee Ermey. That salty, bushy-eyebrowed, sadistic old drill sergeant turned actor, of sorts.
So he continued to watch for that elusive pattern the zombies were demonstrating. He knew it was there; he just needed to keep his mouth shut, his eyes open, and needed to damn well pay attention to what was going on around him.
Looking down from three various locations on the roof, he observed many of the infected moving south at about the same time each day, almost like they were migrating. Three things he was certain of was the time of day this apparent migration occurred, that they all headed in a southerly direction, and that there seemed to be slightly less of them in the areas surrounding his location.
Their numbers were relative, of course. There were still seemingly dozens spread out in the area, but less of them than in the beginning. Something was definitely odd about their behavior, other than the obvious fact they were zombies, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. He could see down Stockton Street, a fairly steep hill, past Union Square, toward a section of Market Street that appeared to be packed with the infected. “Why are you all down there?” Harry pondered several times.
On the second and final day of his zombie stakeout, another event occurred that would ultimately help Harry. As he was just getting ready to open the roof door to descend down the stairs back to his apartment, he heard what could only have been the report of a very large weapon from the direction of the Bay Bridge, which was southeast of his building. It was very similar to something heard during fireworks shows just before the huge shell blanks exploded overhead.
As he turned toward the sound, a section of the Bay Bridge was clearly in view. The next thing he heard was a huge explosion followed immediately by thick black smoke rising from the bridge section nearest Treasure Island. Harry had just said “What the fuck!” when he heard three more shots in fairly rapid succession and, with the corresponding explosions, more black smoke rising but in different sections of the upper deck. All in very close proximity to the Treasure Island connector.
Harry had no idea what was happening, but the effect the noise had on the zombies was immediate. They all started walking, running, or crawling in the direction of the bridge and the noise, clearing yet more of them from his area. In addition, they were headed right for the burning section of the City, so it became Harry’s fervent hope that the fire would also take out some of them along the way.
The elusive zombie behavior had finally become very clear to Harry, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks, as he was watching the interview on GNN “… zombies don’t swim and are afraid of water,” and “zombies prefer to walk downhill, unless they get attracted to something up hill.” Harry had sat bolt upright in the chair when he heard that. “Could it be that simple?”
“It’s the fog!” Harry had shouted. “They’re trying to get away from the heavy fog, forcing them downhill!” That was when the gears started turning in formulating the plan he was going to attempt. But he needed to be sure. The City was continuing to burn, and his time was running out to remain in the building much longer, so whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it soon. Being burned to death or ripped apart by zombies were options Harry preferred to avoid.
10
The late spring and summer months were generally the time of year that the fog was the heaviest in San Francisco; it was very thick and rolled into the Bay past the Golden Gate to ultimately blanket a good portion of the City. This fog brought along with it a heavy mist, almost like a light rain drizzle, sometimes covering everything like dew. "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,'' was a saying that had become a San Francisco cliché. Although this was supposed to have been something Mark Twain had said, it had turned out to be an invention of unknown origin. But never truer words were spoken. This time of year San Francisco was the foggiest.
Going back onto the roof, Harry spent a couple days, just to be certain, never leaving and only dozing for an hour or two at a time, observing the zombies and their behavior. Unfortunately he was forced to witness things he would have rather not: survivors apparently trying to make a break for safety, wherever they had thought that might be, either on foot or in vehicles. The ones on foot were usually brought down almost immediately, being set upon and consumed. Harry had been an avid NatGeo fan. Now he had center seat to an all-new series for them. The feeding habits of the anything-BUT-elusive Super Rabies Infected Zombie. “See mutilation and death in 3D, high definition,” he’d said to himself sarcastically. “Thank God we don’t have smell-a-vision.”
The survivors in cars, vans, or trucks fared only sligh
tly better, which meant they just lived a little longer than those who tried running on foot. The sheer number of Zs that would surround a vehicle would bog it down to a complete halt. The vehicle took out portions of the horde, smashing them into bloody masses of flesh and bone, but never enough to really do much good.
The infected would quickly surround vehicles, bringing them to a halt as their tires could simply find no traction on the inches-thick gore that covered the street. Once the vehicles were stopped, the zombies made short work of breaking the windows and dragging the survivors out, kicking and screaming, to be lost in the middle of yet another feeding frenzy. There was never much left of the bodies when the zombies were finished with them other than scattered bloody bones and pieces of shredded clothing.
But Harry was able to confirm that the zombies did, in fact, move away from the fog. Harry spent those two days on the roof watching the thick grayish fog slowly roll in like a specter arriving to consume all in its path. It was fascinating to see the zombies’ reaction to the fog. Once the moisture touched them, they became as frenzied in their need to move away from it as during their wholesale slaughter of survivors. Whether these things felt fear was unknown, but they definitely had issues with what Mother Nature brought to their doorstep each evening. Harry was now ready to put his plan in action.
With one final glance, Harry left his apartment, feeling the need to lock the door to what would surely become nothing more than a dusty time capsule. Or more likely it would be completely consumed by fire. He then made his way down the main hallway to the building’s front entrance and approached one of the side windows next to the door.
Carefully looking through the small window, he was satisfied that at least for the moment the immediate area in front of the building was clear enough for him to slip out. The Zs appeared to still be distracted by whatever they had found in the building across the street, or whatever zombies did in their spare time, and it was time to move. Glancing out one last time to make certain the coast was still clear, Harry quickly exited the building and made his way down the street, using the many stalled vehicles for cover as much as possible.
Harry’s first destination was the closest police station to the Bay, which was Central Station located on Vallejo Street. He knew that he needed to reach the Bay, the marina specifically, to work his plan, but along the way he wanted to follow Commodore Allen’s suggestion of eliminating as many zombies as possible.
To accomplish that, he reminded himself once again that more fire power was needed. He had been assigned to Central right before retirement, and usually reported there when he was on reserve duty, so knew the layout very well. But the most important thing Harry knew was that this station housed one of the SWAT units, which meant there could be some interesting items still in the armory. Whether anything was left after the heavy April 1st response was unknown but he needed to start somewhere. Harry figured that not enough officers had been able to make it to the station to have taken all of the equipment and weapons.
When Harry left the apartment building, dawn had just began to break, giving just enough light to see the otherwise darkened streets. He immediately saw it was the typical San Francisco morning he had needed, cold and with a heavy high fog. This was not the typical fog most people recognized, covering everything; rather it was a higher, swirling type.
It was maybe a hundred and fifty feet up from the ground, but with a mist that left a heavy layer of moisture on everything. Exactly the kind he had hoped for. This was the type of morning Harry had worked into his plan, and would use for cover while making his way to the police station.
Harry knew that from his current location on Pine Street, he would need to go west one block and then turn north onto Powell. If he were very lucky he would be able to take Powell the ten or so blocks to where it intersected with Vallejo Street. Then he would turn east on Vallejo, as Central Station was located about half a block down on the left-hand side. Seemed simple enough at first glance, but he knew things were never “that simple”.
As he slipped through the streets, he begin to see zombies roaming the area directly in from of him, although the heavy moisture in the air seemed to be affecting them. They were stumbling around, seemingly disoriented and in a rage, clawing at themselves as if on fire. There were probably thirty to forty that he could make out in the dim morning light.
Thankfully, they were spread out, with the closest one to him being almost two hundred yards away. He was sure there had to be more, but he had to focus on what he could see for now. He knew this was going to become a running battle, and he hoped his alliance with Mother Nature would help him out or it was going to be a very short campaign.
With a sardonic smile he knew it was time for Dirty Harry Lancaster to start kicking zombie ass and screw taking the names part. It would only be a matter of moments before Harry Lancaster would embark on an all-new form of police work. He was still serving and protecting, but now he would be doing it with a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later mentality.
With one fluid motion he withdrew his Glock from the breakfront on his right side, pulling back the first trigger safety, and took aim at the nearest zombie. A famous line that Harry Callahan had said from Sudden Impact popped to mind: “To me you’re nothin’ but dog shit, you understand? And a lot of things can happen to dog shit. It can be scraped up with a shovel off the ground. It can dry up and blow away in the wind. Or it can be stepped on and squashed. So take my advice and be careful where the dog shits.” With that thought, he completed the finger pull on the trigger and blew the top of the first zombie’s head off.
The Glock is not the easiest weapon to use in an extended firefight due to the safety features built into the trigger pull, and it took practice to master any real accuracy, but once mastered it produced some awesome results. Results Harry was appreciating greatly at the moment.
He continued to fire while steadily moving forward, stopping briefly to aim, watching the zombies approach while trying to zero in on his location, and then falling under the impact of the heavy .45 caliber hollow point slug. Advance, aim, discharge the weapon; advance, aim, discharge the weapon. Drop the empty magazine; place the empty in the left rear pocket of the jeans. Insert a fresh mag, pull the slide, sweep the area for the next threat, aim, and discharge the weapon. A smoothly controlled, automatic process with accurate results.
Several of his shots went low but Harry was close enough that even though the shots to center mass did not kill the zombies, it was enough to put them down, and they were slower to recover. Harry took macabre satisfaction in seeing chests explode, legs and arms blown off, and in many cases spines shattering. The zombies, paralyzed with those wounds, could then only stare at him while he passed.
It dawned on Harry, as he kept up his steady progress down Powell Street, that he did not have to achieve kill shots on every target. Although many of the rounds he discharged were effective in removing large portions of zombie heads, he just needed to inflect severe enough damage to slow them down. The .45 caliber hollow point round obliged very nicely toward that end. Harry began to target center mass along with the pelvis area, which would take the legs right out from under them.
11
Harry was making headway, and had gotten maybe six blocks when, as he feared, more zombies began to appear from some of the buildings; they were drawn, he was certain, by the noise from firing the gun. As he had already seen, they knew he was there, somewhere, but they still could not focus enough to get his precise location. He even watched, to his horror, a group of at least eight of them start running in his direction as he was changing out magazines. “Fuck me!” was all Harry could say. But to his surprise they ran right by him.
The zombies knew he was there because they stopped just a few yards past him, moaning and growling in apparent frustration, arms extended with hands almost claw-like, turning their heads as if on a pivot to look for him. It appeared as if the moisture in the heavy fog caused some serious sight distortion in
their unblinking eyes.
Harry didn’t waste time in contemplating the reasons; he just got his ass in gear and took advantage of this newly confirmed information. He was not going to stick around to find out how keen their sense of smell might be.
Harry had been able to put some distance between him and the last grouping of Zs. Realizing they were probably being drawn more to the sound of the gun discharging than actually seeing him, he decided to try a slightly different tactic. Down to two full mags, twenty-six rounds, there was little choice.
He did not think he could call a time out to reload the three empty mags that were in his back pocket. Reloading the rather bulky .45 round into spring-loaded mags, even ones well broken in, could be a bitch in the best of times, let alone when there were zombies trying to eat one’s face off.
Making sure there was a fresh mag inserted, Harry holstered the gun and deployed his ASP expandable baton that was located on the left side of his belt. He cross drew it across the front with the dominant right hand for greater control. He had carried several different forms of batons over the years, which were striking weapons to force compliance, and were very effective in most cases.
Harry’s first baton had been a 28” straight stick. Because of his 6’6” height, he was able to handle a 28” length over the standard 24”. The baton was made from the hardwood of the Mexican Cocobolo, a very hard and dense wood similar to rosewoods, which had an intensely beautiful grain. In those days it was one of the most common batons available. As cocobolo became harder to locate and more difficult to get into the United States, those batons became very expensive, giving way to polycarbonates.
Also in the cast of batons he had used was the PR-24 side handle, which was very effective for close quarter engagements, and finally the expandable metal batons. The biggest drawback to the expandables was that they could collapse down during use, basically rendering them useless, which could be a real problem. The ASP model baton had proven to be the most reliable on the market, and most in law enforcement used that particular manufacturer.