Sensing the impending doom, a few of the evacuees were able to muster up enough courage and accompanied the police officers. They weren’t armed, but they knew that they needed to try do something to help keep out the menacing specters. As Vincent approached the bowing section of fence line, he didn’t know what else to do, so he brought up his shot gun and braced himself as he pulled the butt stock into his shoulder. “Damn, I wish we had at least one freakin’ patrol rifle!” he screamed to Nick.
Vincent squeezed the trigger and began to fire away into the mass of reanimated and infected. The other officers followed suit and began firing their pistols and shotguns at the snarling and shrieking mob. What the officers had failed to take into consideration before opening fire was that the sound of their gunfire was now drawing the rest of the runners and undead from around the stadium.
“Shit, it’s no good!” Nick yelled over the chaos. “There are more of them coming, and they’re just walking on top of the ones we’re killing!” The sound of the barrage—the booming of the shotguns and the popping of pistols—was deafening, and the smell of burnt gun powder filled the air with a metallic scent.
“What do we do!” screamed one of the frightened evacuees who had come to help. Vincent turned to look at him. The fear in the older man’s eyes was contagious and Vincent had to fight the urge to break and run away from the scene unfolding in front of him. He ignored the question and looked down as he fumbled to retrieve more shotgun ammunition from the cargo pocket of his uniform pants. He was able to grab a handful of shells, and as he was pulling them out, the clanking of steel pipes on concrete made him look up. The fence had given way.
“The fence is down!” screamed a woman as she turned to run. “They’re coming in!”
“Fuck, let’s get out of here!” Nick yelled. “Everyone for themselves!”
“Shit!” Vincent shouted. He stood motionless for a moment—petrified with fear at the sight of the undead and infected as they poured in through the downed section of the fence. After a few seconds of staring open-mouthed at the unbelievable scene in front of him, he realized that he was going to die if he didn’t force himself to move. “Let’s try for the main entrance…for the patrol cars!” he yelled as he pointed to the north side of the stadium.
As Nick and Vincent prepared to make their run for safety, Josh ran out towards the middle of the field. “Quick, form a skirmish line right here!” he yelled as he pointed down at the fifty yard line. The cacophony of screaming people and gun fire made it difficult to hear anything. “We can try to stop them here!”
“Fuck that, let’s get the hell out of here!” screamed Albert.
“Yeah Josh, let’s get out of here!” Vincent yelled as he tried to make himself heard over the chaos and confusion. “There aren’t enough of us to do anything!”
“We just can’t leave these people here like this!” Josh shouted back. “Anyway, where you gonna go? We’re surrounded!”
“Well I sure as shit ain’t staying here!” Vincent yelled back. He looked over at Nick. “I’m not staying here to die. I’m outta here! You with me?”
“I’m with you!” Nick yelled. The two men broke into a sprint and ran out across the field and past the shelters. “Try to make it to the buses!” Nick yelled at the evacuees as he ran past them. The look of confusion and fear in their eyes made him feel sick to his stomach. He knew that they were leaving them to their deaths, but neither man was going to take the time to stop and provide directions to the helpless people. They were on their own.
The mass of infected came crashing through the shelters like a tsunami wave washing over a tiny village. The hapless evacuees began to scatter as the fast-moving infected spread out over the stadium. Many of the people were caught in their shelters and were slaughtered. Others sustained bites and fled, only to turn into runners themselves.
Out of desperation, a few people, including a mother and her two small children, ran up to the top of the bleachers on the visitor’s side. Several runners saw this and began to clamber over the aluminum planks as they gave chase. Reaching the top bleacher, they were now a hundred feet over the walkway down below, and the woman realized that she had no other place to run to. Like animals trapped in a pen, she and her children darted along the length of the top safety fence until they were cornered.
“Oh my God!” she screamed as she clutched her two kids. Wanting to spare them a painful and horrific death, she grabbed her shrieking five year old little girl and heaved her over the fence.
“Mommy loves you!” she cried as she grabbed onto her six year old son.
“No mommy, please!” he wailed as she tossed him over the fence.
With her eyes fixed on the bodies of her children below her—their blood and brains splattered on the concrete—she scaled the fence and screamed, “Mommy will be with you in a minute!” She was about to join them in one last desperate act of self-salvation, but before she could jump to her own death, her pant leg snagged on the top of the fence. In the next instant, a group of runners was pouncing on her. As she was pulled down from the fence and back into the bleachers, she kicked and screamed as she was bitten and pummeled. In a sadistic twist of fate, her children were now free from the misery of the world while she was damned to roam it as a member of the undead.
As Vincent darted through the fleeing crowd, he was filled with shame for abandoning them to their deaths, but his survival mode had kicked in and he had made up his mind that he wasn’t going to die in the stadium. Several of the other police officers saw this and began running behind Vincent and Nick.
“Look, the main gate looks fairly clear!” Nick shouted over to Vincent. “I think we can get out through there!”
As Vincent ran up to the chain-link gate, he saw that it was secured with a large pad lock. He aimed his shotgun at it and blew it off. Nick grabbed the heavy gate and swung it open. “Let’s go!” he yelled. The two ran out into the parking lot and quickly scanned their surroundings. A line of buses sat off to their right and several squad cars were parked in a row to their left. Luckily for them, the parking lot had emptied of runners and reanimated as the ghouls had been drawn by the gunfire to the other side of the stadium.
“The patrol cars!” Vincent yelled as he pointed with his shotgun. They dashed over to the black and whites and jumped into the nearest one. A third police officer caught up with them and opened the rear door, diving into the back seat. She pulled the car door shut and started screaming for Vincent to drive.
Vincent started the car, and as he shifted into drive, several of the pursuing runners caught up with them and began hurling themselves onto the car. One runner began to pound on the rear windshield with his fist, smearing it with his own blood. Vincent floored the gas pedal and sent the runner tumbling from the trunk. The car raced across the parking lot and Vincent had to swerve to miss several other runners as they tried throwing themselves in the path of the police cruiser.
“Those mother fuckers are like Kamikazes!” Nick yelled as one runner bounced off of the front bumper.
After weaving through the crowd, Vincent drove to a relatively clear corner of the parking lot, swinging the front end of the car back around to where it was facing the stadium. His heart was pounding excitedly in his chest. He struggled to catch his breath and calm his nerves as he clenched his hands around the steering wheel. “Holy shit! We barely made it out of there!”
He surveyed the lot for survivors and saw that one other police car was emerging from the chaos. He grabbed the radio mic and said, “Hey, if you are monitoring this channel, follow me and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Vincent released the push to talk button and waited for a response.
“We’re going to head back to the West station and see if anyone is there,” replied a voice over the speaker.
“Did you try reaching them on the radio?” Vincent questioned.
“They’re not answering up, but at least they have a fuel station there.”
&n
bsp; “Shit, maybe we should head over there too,” Nick suggested to Vincent.
“Maybe we should,” the female officer added, “but whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it fast. They’re running our way.”
“Damn, I swear…you can’t even catch your breath before they’re on you!” Vincent shouted. “I was hoping to see if anyone else had made it out before we left. Maybe Josh or Albert.”
“I think this is about it,” the female officer said.
“Yeah, looks like it,” Vincent sighed. It then dawned on him that he didn’t even know the name of the officer who was sitting in the back seat. He looked back at her but saw no name tag because she had also taken off her uniform shirt and was wearing a black tee. He didn’t recognize her, but he noticed that she was very attractive. A short little afro, sculpted eyebrows and full lips gave her a rather exotic appearance. “Sorry, but I don’t really don’t know you. What’s your name?”
“Shondra,” she said as she looked past him and at the approaching runners. “My name is Shondra Watson.”
“Where do you work out of?” Nick asked her.
“East Patrol.”
“Cool,” Vincent said. “I’m Vincent, from South.”
“And I’m Nick. I work North. I’ve seen you around from time to time,” Nick said as he nodded towards Vincent, “but I haven’t seen you before. You must be new.”
“I’ve been on for two years,” she said. “Hey, I don’t know if we should be sitting here doing all these formal introductions.” She pointed to the runners.
“Fucking bastards,” Vincent said. He placed the mic to his mouth and pressed the “talk” button. “Alright, we’ll head to West and see what’s there.” As an afterthought he looked over to his passengers and asked, “Are the two of you cool with that?”
“Yeah, I’m good,” Nick said.
“Me too,” Shondra said. “Let’s just get the hell out of here before they figure out how to flip over this car.”
“Alright, hang on.” Vincent dropped the car into drive and sped through the parking lot, maneuvering his way towards an access road that skirted the west side of the sports complex. He grabbed the radio mic again and said, “Hey, we’re going to try Culebra all the way down to the station. We’ll just jump onto Sixteen Oh-Four and take our chances up there.”
“Sounds good to me,” said the voice on the radio. “We’ll follow you.”
“Who else you got with you?” Vincent asked.
“I got me and Felix Zambrano, plus two civilians.”
“What’s your name, buddy? I never got a chance to really talk to you back at the stadium.”
“Unger…Donald Unger…Me and Zambrano work Downtown.”
“Alright Don, just stay with me.” Vincent zoomed out of the parking lot and up the access road of the highway. He then took the turnaround at an overpass and entered onto the now empty highway. As he did so, he handed the mic to Nick and said, “Try to raise anyone you can. Try all the channels. Let them know that the Robinson Sports Complex has been overrun. And keep trying to get ahold of the West station. Please.”
“Sure thing,” Nick said as he took the mic from Vincent.
“You think we should try Bandera Road?” Shondra asked as they approached the intersection of Bandera and Highway 1604.
Vincent slowed the car and surveyed the intersection ahead of them. “Uh, I don’t think so…not by the way it looks from here.” The business and shopping strips on either side of the intersection were totally devastated. Abandoned cars dotted the parking lots and several fires were raging out of control. Numerous runners could be seen darting back and forth across the large six lane road.
“I think we should just keep going down to Culebra,” Nick suggested. “Anyway, Culebra leads straight to the station. If we take Bandera, it takes us away from the station and we’ll end up having to take a whole bunch of different streets just to get to where we want to go.”
After sizing up the situation for a brief moment, Vincent said, “Yeah, you’re right. We’ll just go down to Culebra.”
As he moved down the highway, he noticed that there were no other vehicles on the road. After a few miles of riding in silence, they came upon a car that had flipped on its side and ended up in the grassy median. Two bloodied and tattered reanimated bodies were kneeling down and feasting on the unfortunate driver.
“Why do they want to eat us?” Nick said as he looked at the gruesome scene. “I just can’t figure it out…what in the world would make them actually want to eat us?”
“Maybe it’s what the weapon was designed for,” Shondra said. “Isn’t that what the government said, that this was some sort of weapon that got loose?”
“Well, if they made it that way, that’s pretty fucked up,” Nick said.
“Uh, I think that’s an understatement,” Vincent added. “Dude, just keep trying the radio. We can have this discussion some other time.”
“Sorry, man, it’s just hard not to talk about it…especially when motherfuckers are eating people right in front of you!” Nick said as he raised his voice in anger.
As the two patrol cars finally reached the Culebra exit, they were greeted with an otherworldly sight. “My God, this looks like right out of a disaster movie!” Nick exclaimed as Vincent cautiously exited off of the highway.
Ahead of them was a scene of utter desolation.
Culebra Road was a four lane thoroughfare that snaked its way across San Antonio’s west side. The section of road that the patrol cars were navigating on was lined on either side with shopping strips and residential neighborhoods and it was usually teeming with traffic at that time of the day. Seeing it devoid of the hustle and bustle of rush hour made Vincent and his passengers realize that the area had been lost. As the two cars turned left and made their way under the overpass, they saw what could only be described as a war zone.
Scattered across all four lanes of the road were the remnants of two separate vehicle accidents. Several fires were burning wildly out of control in the businesses around the intersection and the sky was filling with billowing black smoke. The accident in the east bound lanes was now a roaring inferno and several charred bodies littered the pavement next to the cars. The glass doors and windows of the strip mall stores were shattered and broken. Their once bright and vibrant stucco exteriors were now blackened and dirtied. Shards of broken glass strewn across the parking lots and roadway twinkled in the hot summer sun. As Shondra gauged the scene, she noticed the rear end of a city bus protruding from out of one of the retail businesses. Somehow it had crashed through the glass doors of an electronics store.
“How in the hell did that happen?” Shondra asked as they drove past the bus.
“Shit, looks there’s hundreds of them out here,” Nick commented as he surveyed the scene. He pointed at several large groups of runners in the littered parking lots—they were chasing down the few unlucky individuals who had been brave enough to venture out into public.
“Why in the hell did they come out here?” Shondra asked staring at the astonishing scene. “Maybe we should try and help them?”
“There’s nothing we can do for them,” Vincent said in a grim tone. “They were probably looking for supplies and got caught out in the open. Looks like most of the places were looted. Look at the grocery store over there…it’s all fucked up.”
“Holy shit,” Don’s voice crackled over the radio. “It’s all gone to shit.”
“Yeah, it has,” Vincent said. He looked back at Shondra and his eyes shot down to her gun belt. “How much ammo do you have left?” She could hear the concern in his voice.
“About a mag and a half.”
“That’s all? You didn’t draw any extra ammunition yesterday when they set up the camp?”
“I did,” she said, frustrated, “but I went through most of it trying to get out of there.”
“I got about two boxes,” Nick said.
“Well, hopefully they’ll have more at the station
,” Vincent grumbled. “We’re gonna need it.”
“I hope they have more than that at the station,” Nick quipped. “Like maybe some food or water…and a toilet. I gotta take a massive dump.” He rubbed his stomach and gritted his teeth, flexing the sinews in his jaws. A deep audible rumble from his guts verified Nick’s dire situation.
“Not a nice thought,” Shondra said. “Just don’t do it in here, that’s all I gotta say.”
As the two patrol cars made their way east on Culebra, Vincent and the others sat in shocked silence as they took in everything they were seeing. After driving a few miles further down the road, they saw the flashing emergency lights of a fire truck. As they neared it, they could see that its front left tire was flattened. Parked behind it was an empty police car with its front doors swung open.
“Slow down, see if anyone’s there,” Shondra said.
Listening to her, Vincent brought the car to a crawl as they cautiously peered out of the windows.
“Oh fuck, look!” Nick said with revulsion. “Over there.” He was pointing to a patch of trees that sat off the road and behind the fire truck and police car. There were two police officers who were emerging from the brush. They were stumbling around in a very stiff and painful fashion. One of the cops was missing his right arm below the elbow and the other one was drenched in blood. They were reanimated.
“Damn, I know him…the one missing the arm,” Vincent said as he slapped the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch!”
“Hey man, you see two of our guys over there by the fire truck!” Donald’s voice shrieked over the radio. “They’re fucking zombies!”
“What should we do?” Nick asked. He brought his hands up to his face and covered his eyes. He then let out an anguished yell. “Fuck!”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Vincent moaned. “Shit, there’s the firemen now.” Three bloodied and tattered firefighters came walking into view from behind the fire truck. Two of them appeared to be runners while the third was reanimated.
A Glimpse of Decay (Book 3): Lost in Twilight Page 2