There was a flash of blue in the hallway as Murphy sprinted to the doors. He was almost level with the second zombie when the shots stuck it. One bullet hit the zombie center-of-mass and the other struck the creature’s head. The younger officer slipped on the ground and slid towards the two doors.
The second zombie, trying to get to its feet, was slithering towards him. Scholastica fired a third time and hit the zombie, now facing away from him, with another double tap. One bullet struck the zombie between its shoulder blades and another lower down its back. The zombie fell motionless as Murphy got to his feet and closed the doors, jamming the broom handle into place as a temporary bolt.
The younger officer spun toward Scholastica who was approaching him, gun drawn in a two handed grip, covering the two creatures he had just put down. Murphy saw the third zombie emerge from the room behind Scholastica and drew his weapon.
“Down!” he yelled, and as the older officer spun to look he felt the two 9mm bullets whizz passed his head. Less than ten feet away from him the zombie’s chest exploded and it fell to the side with no attempt to cushion its fall.
Scholastica turned back to Murphy and they shared a nod of mutual gratitude. The floor was isolated but not secure, and within a second of their nodding to each other several blood curdling screams filled the air.
******
More noises in corridors, she thought to herself as she heard eight separate gun shots fill the air. Where exactly they came from she could not be sure. Then from the outside of her bathroom fortress she heard the creature scream in a sickening and horrific chorus.
The banging on the door had been relentless since the early morning hours. She held no watch or phone, but she estimated that she had been alone in the bathroom for at least eighteen hours. She had prayed for the noise to stop, she had prayed to be taken out of here, but she had prayed to live more.
She knew that she had much to do in the service of God now that the world had gone to hell. Yet the banging continued. She thought that her prayers were going unanswered until she realized that the door and its lock had held out. The door was strong and the creatures had held insufficient coordination or strength to force the lock. She had supposed that if the demons at the door had not found a way to her, the Lord must have been listening somehow.
But as the screams subsided the continuous thumping stopped suddenly, and she waited for a moment as if to wonder if the noise had stopped or she had simply gotten used to the continual drumming. Then she heard two more shots quickly followed by another two and one voice yelling something about “Loading”.
Screams filled the air again and she covered her ears, but even the muffling protection of her hands would not cut out the high pitched terror that the screams brought with them. Two more shots were heard, and then another two and another scream of “Loading”. Yet this voice was different. There was a greater sense of urgency in the second voice and although there was no sound of panic, there was obviously fear. It was the same fear she had heard in the orphanage and in the sounds of the other women in the hostel when her father had gone on the shooting rampage that had left her without a mother.
Sounds in the corridor once more, she thought, as two more shots rang out.
******
Officer Scholastica fired at another zombie, at least four more were piling out of the same door and he called for his partner to hurry up. Murphy was fumbling with his last magazine and he couldn’t seem to steady his hands enough to align the pistol grip.
“Murphy breath!” he called and the younger officer simply replied with a series of curses and ejected the spent magazine. A typical rookie mistake, thought Scholastica, adrenaline over-riding common sense. He fired a series of four more shots and was happy to hear the sound of his partner’s Berretta joining in the fight.
The air, thick with a smoky haze and the smell of blood and other bodily fluids (that not even the cordite smell of spent ammunition shells could mask), grew silent.
Scholastica listened to the sounds of silence across the hospital floor and realized that all he could hear was Murphy taking deep breaths of relief. Conversely, Scholastica realized he was holding his breath before making a long slow exhalation. He was down to his last three rounds of ammunition now and he doubted his rookie partner had many more than he did. They had burned almost all their ammunition in getting to and clearing this floor.
“How you doing kid?” he asked Murphy, who simply nodded and spat on the ground. It was obvious to the more seasoned police officer that the kid had experienced the coppery taste of adrenalin and fear in his mouth for the first time. The same taste he had experienced on that April afternoon years before.
“You can’t spit that taste away Murphy” he said with a pat on the young officers back. “It’s the beast reminding you that you’re still alive”.
“Let’s clear this floor” the kid replied with a breath that sounded as if his heart was about to beat right out of his chest.
******
Sister Mary Jude no longer heard shooting on the floor. The screams and banging had stopped, and she wondered if she should risk a glance outside the bathroom that had been her sanctuary for so many hours. Yet, despite her being so much older than the last time she had seen her mother, she still heard her words.
“Stay here and someone will find you; don’t move until mommy or a policeman comes”. And so she sat and waited.
“Clear” she heard a voice say from down the hallway, and then a half a minute later the same word.
“Clear.”
She may have been a nun, but that did not mean that she did not like to watch TV or movies. She had heard police on TV shows like “Blue Bloods” and “Law and Order” saying the same thing when they rushed into a building to search out the unseen bad guy with moments to spare before saving a victim of kidnapping, or a bomb that needed to be diffused usually with only a second to spare on the timer device.
“Clear” the older voice called before that same word was echoed by the younger voice. The voices were closer now, as if they were in the next room. Then she heard footsteps outside the door of the bathroom in which she sat.
“Clear.” The younger voice called, but this time there was not repetition. Instead there was the sound of the door handle turning. The door knocked with three sharp taps before the older voice spoke.
“Hello?” he said, more as a question than as a greeting. Sister Mary Jude realized she was holding her breath and exhaled slowly.
“Hello? Providence PD is there anyone in there?” Then there was silence.
******
Scholastica made a motion with his finger to the door. Yet this was not a door they could storm into. The door swung out into the room and it was firmly locked in place. Murphy approached with his gun covering the door and both officers stepped back suddenly as a scuffle came from the other side. They held up their guns again as if pointing them at the door would suddenly force their unseen assumed enemy to fall back.
“What do we do? Mark it as do not open?” Murphy asked.
“It would save ammo, and besides, it’s locked from the inside” replied Scholastica. But what he was about to say next he never finished, because the sound of the lock being opened interrupted him. A soft New England accented female voice spoke out to both of them.
“Don’t shoot, I am coming out.” The voice said, and the door opened out into the room. What Scholastica saw was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her red shoulder length hair famed a face of alabaster skin and she had a stunning pair of emerald green eyes that stared out to hm. She was a good ten years younger than he, but he was immediately hypnotized by her beauty, so much so that he was taken by surprise when Murphy spoke.
“You’re a nun?” asked the younger officer and her gaze broke from Scholastica to the younger man, and then he saw the modern habit she held in her hand as she nodded slowly.
“I prayed you would come” she whispered, more to herself than the policemen.
“James Murphy” replied the younger and waited for Scholastica to respond. The air was silent for a moment and then Scholastica snapped out of his daydream. Scholastica was having problems processing the juxtaposition of heavenly beauty next to the horrors of hell.
“Sorry,” he said, after realizing he was staring at her. “I am Officer Paul Scholastica” then he simply nodded.
“Patron Saint of Nuns” sister Mary Jude replied and smiled that mesmerizing smile once more. “I suppose that means I am in good hands.”
10
The Tadler Brothers
Approximately 10 miles North of Newburgh, New York, the Old Indian Road meanders its way between I-87 and the Hudson River. The few homes that are along this road are secluded and the people that live there can go weeks without seeing another neighbor should they choose. It is for this reason the Tadler Brothers had made this area their new home. All they needed to do was find which one they were going to claim.
VOICE had warned many people of the upcoming problems, and his radio broadcasts over the MARS or Military Axillary Radio Network, had been coming in thick and fast over the last forty-eight hours.
“Now do not say I did not warn you all that this was coming!” were the words he had used to start his last broadcast. “It started with Operation Jade Helm. All of those Wall-Marts closing indicated the way that they intended to prevent all of us good, true patriots looting them for food and supplies.
We all know all too well that Jade Helm was to train Navy Seals, Green Berets and all the other groups to cease control of those centers. That’s why we kept seeing all of those convoys. What did I see this morning? I see just now? I saw a convoy and roads being blocked off all around here. I got a call coming in right now!”
The sound of VOICE’s Mars Radio cackled as another person joined the broadcast.
“Yeah, am I on?” the caller asked, and VOICE assured the caller he was.
“Let me tell you this Sir! I went out around 10 this morning and saw the military blocking off fifty at the end of I-97 there, whole bunch of Blackhawks headed from Annapolis towards Fort Mead and back again!” The caller explained. “I will bet you it’s to get all those damn liberals out of there so we true Americans have to fight all these riots going on.” He added before VOICE interrupted.
“I hear you friend, and I can confirm that route fifty is closed at the Kent Narrows too. It sounds like they are setting up a quarantine area to me. All day, there have been reports of air traffic around the naval academy. I am waiting to see if Jeb was able to get the boat up there from Chesapeake Beach. DC is on complete blackout, nothing getting in or out and radio is all blacked out. This is it folks, they are finally making a stand against us true Americans. More news as it comes in.”
Ty Tadler was messing on the hood of the ninety-six Ford Bronco and laughing to himself while JD busied himself with the spray painting of the vehicle in camouflage colors. It was Al that was quietly standing near the bodies of the creatures he had just killed with his brothers.
No doubt they had once been the occupants of the farmhouse they were going to use as a base of operations before moving their supplies in. One of the bodies was still wriggling around on the ground. And despite having cut off each of its limbs, Al raised his gun and pulled the trigger once more taking a sizable chuck from the side of the zombies head. Yet still it moved.
“Al!” called out J.D, spray can in hand, “what are you doing?”
“I’m enjoying the sun, catching the breeze and shooting some zombies” he called back. Then he giggled to himself before taking another draw from the joint he held in his free hand.
“Call it an experiment, but I don’t think these things have a brain anymore.”
Ty, the youngest brother leaned over the hood of the truck and made a long snorting noise before looking up. The powder from the cocaine he had just inhaled left a residue on his two-day-old facial hair.
“You don’t have a fucking brain!” he called over to Al as he took a spray can and drew a line of black across the trucks door.
“No watch” called Al and shot it in the head again. It continued with its gruesome limbless crawl.
“Maybe it’s just doing the headless chicken thing.” said JD as he walked over to Al and shared his brother’s inspection of the flailing zombie. An eye was hanging out of a socket and dragging across the blacktop as it wriggled some more“.
Oh man!” he exclaimed, “look at its eye man. That’s fucked up dude!” exclaimed JD.
“I was looking at all those other dead ones over there,” explained Al, waiving his gun in the direction of all the other bodies on the road. “All those dudes are shot through the chest or back, and they are all done.”
Ty was now standing next to his brothers and holding a dusty mirror with two thin lines of cocaine in the center.
“You guys want some?” he asked, and watched as JD took a line first and then Al took only half of his.
“JD, get my hunting knife” Al ordered before taking the mirror from his youngest brother. “Dude, you earned this.” Al was now talking to the grotesque pile of flesh and gore at his feet.
He blew the cocaine into the remains of the zombie’s face. The zombie howled and screamed, thrashing violently at the brothers that kept stepping out of his reach. “You better do this like the crocodile hunter bro!” said JD as Al took off his shirt and handed it to Ty.
Al moved behind it quickly and dived on the back of the zombie. It thrashed wildly and almost shook him free. Amidst Al’s screams Ty burst into laughter.
“Danger, it’s going into a death roll mate!” said Ty with an attempt at an Australian accent that sounded more Indian.
“Cover his head!” yelled Al at his brothers that were busy laughing at the combination of Ty’s joke and Al’s efforts to placate the writhing zombie. The pathetic creature’s eye swung around its head, like a swing ball game. The creature snapped with its teeth, trying desperately to gain some relief from its hunger for flesh and blood.
“I don’t think this shirt goes with his pants and the whole recently undead look” added JD.
“Dude, will you stop being a total retard and put it on his head!” Tyler did so, but it had no effect so he simply stomped it to the ground under his combat boot.
“There!” called Ty with a satisfied grunt. ‘Now you find a hooker that wriggles like that under a guy and we will make a million!” he added with another laugh.
The other two brothers, who were no strangers to hunting and gutting their kills, were at the zombies back as soon as Al had dismounted. They cut the creature open but, almost simultaneously, they stepped back in disgust.
A huge ball of nerves surrounded the spine of the creature. It pulsed wildly and seemed to speed up when it tried to attack. The grizzled knot of exposed nerves distracted the brothers from the rest of the creature and they were momentarily mesmerized.
A primal instinct seemed to take over the zombie’s body and it thrashed out again with its bloody stumps and head. Ty was caught off balance and as he tried to step back he fell to the ground.
With a strength that seemed impossible, the zombie used the stumps, which had once been its upper arms, to form a grotesque push up and it lunged forward, its teeth gripping into the youngest brother’s pants’ leg.
The creature shook its head wildly back and forth as if it were trying to tear a hole. It then opened its mouth. Then, throwing its head back, it made a downward chopping motion. But Al’s knife was quickly plunged to the hilt through the back of its head before the blade’s tip pushed out of its open mouth.
The creature was paralyzed in an instant: but still alive. The creature groaned and tried to scream but suddenly went silent. Al then tore the knot of pulsing nerves from the zombie’s back.
Ty kicked at t
he zombie’s head violently and scooted backwards. The color had drained from his face and what had been his cocaine induced high just a few seconds earlier was now all gone.
“Dude!” said Ty, panting wildly. “No more coke for the dead guys.” However, Al was not listening; he was simply staring at the knot in his hand, as if mesmerized by the disgusting ball of blood soaked gore he held.
“Fuck me!” said Al before adding “They have a second brain! That’s why head shots don’t kill them.” The brothers both stared back at their brother as if he had gone mad.
“Dude, how can it have a second brain, that’s like totally fucked up!” spat Ty back at him.
“Brother, I am not a scientist, but this is a brain that is barely formed, and that is about as fucked up as dead people walking around, but they are.”
“From now on…” JD said, pointing at his brothers with the knife, “…we aim for the spine.”
11
Annapolis
The sky had begun to dull now, and as Doctor Elias Yew watched the clock on the wall turn to seven pm, he realized that he had been waiting here for three hours now. Those hours had been filled with the sight and sound associated with a series of uniformed men and women hustling in and out of rooms that lined the corridor in which he sat.
The three hours that he had sat waiting had moved on quickly at first but now he was convinced that the clock on the wall would go in reverse if he took his eyes off of it.
However, the essence of Doctor Yew’s mistake lay in his actual clock watching. Accordingly, the next fifteen minutes began to drag along with a sense of boredom that bordered on the depressing. He was just fishing out for his notepad when another man entered the waiting area and sat opposite him: greeting him with a cursory nod. The Lieutenant Colonel looked exhausted and his hands seemed to shake slightly.
Zombie Outbreak Z1O5 (Book 2): Zed Dawn Page 11