Officer Down

by E. E. Isherwood

  “We need to defend this entry.” He almost added, “Or we all die,” but he wasn't sure that was true. Maybe there were safer places inside the mine.

  “Does anyone see a map?” He spoke in a normal voice, and only to his people. “Look around. I need to know if this is the best place to put up a barricade. Maybe someone's in charge and moved everyone to a safe room, somewhere inside.” It wasn't what he would have done. Even if someone was in charge and built fortifications inside, he would have left someone here to guide people in—shooters especially. It was either a gross oversight or more likely there was no one in charge.

  Ross stood moping against a wall. He would have to be dealt with at some point because he was absolute dead weight so far but now wasn't the time. Mary took off, deeper into the mine—which at this point was more of a two-lane highway of cars encased by rock. It would be difficult to move any of the vehicles out of line so he could block the entire width of the tunnel.

  He started the car and waited a few seconds to see if, by some miracle, the owner showed up to ask what he was doing. When no one did, he gunned the engine and rammed the car ahead of him. Then hit the gas in reverse, bashing into the car behind. The line of people had halted.

  “Damn right. Wait for me to fix things for you, huh?” He felt his anger. He wasn't used to it, and it taxed him hard. Anger required a lot of energy, and he didn't have that much left to spend. The car lurched ahead again, pushing the next car in line a little to the side. The tires slid on the loose gravel of the underground roadway.

  After a few more times back and forth he was able to turn the car almost directly sideways. It rammed the wall and scraped up against the rear of the next car in line, forming a substantial blockage on that side of the tunnel. He turned off the motor. The spinning tires and exhaust had kicked up a thick cloud of smoke and dust that billowed around the entrance, throwing things into a near-whiteout. Soon it blew out the opening of the mine like a great puff of a cigar.

  “How big is this place?” he wondered.

  Without the ability to park a second running car in line with the first, he had to settle for closing off half the tunnel to foot traffic. The lingering people who had been waiting for him to finish maneuvering the car snaked around and continued by using the smaller space on the left side of the tunnel. They gave James a perfect simulation of what the infected would do when they came along. While they could go over almost anything, they tended to find the path of least resistance when left on their own.

  If they could somehow block that portion of the tunnel, it would make a decent blockade to shoot or stab the zombies. Until they started over the cars...

  James looked around for something he could use to block the gap. There was nothing but cars and trucks in the tunnel. It was just one line of them down the tunnel for hundreds of yards.

  He hesitated as the thought came to his mind, but then he asked the question, knowing their lives depended on it.

  “Does anyone have any ideas on how we can plug this hole?” He pointed to the space about five feet wide between the back of the sideways car and the wall.

  Kevin was silent, but gave a distinct head bob and then made it obvious he was looking around.

  Mary shook her head while Ross said nothing. He had taken a seat on the ground up against a wall. He had his hands over his ears and seemed, well, broken.

  “Hey, kid.” He gently kicked the boy's foot with his own. “I could really use an extra set of eyes on this problem. We've got to block this walkway or the people in the mine are gonna be in big trouble.”

  Maybe that was true. It sounded true. He hated to lie, but he'd hit the bottom of the patience barrel.

  No response.

  James kicked him again, harder. Mary gave him a stern look, but she also carried the wisp of approval so common in domestic disputes. “Don't haul him to jail, but please officer get him away from me.”

  He was about to give up when the young man finally spoke.

  “Tires.”

  What do I do?

  “Tires?” James repeated.

  “Yeah.” The boy looked straight up at him. “Each car has four tires, plus a spare. Use jacks to lift the car, take off the wheels, then drop the car again. Stack the tires in the gap.”

  James reappraised the young man. He seemed to perk up at the challenge, though something wasn't quite right about him. He was ready to give the kid a high five and put him to work on the project he'd thought of, but just as quickly as it arrived, his enthusiasm flagged. He put his head down on his knees and seemed to wrap himself up in his arms.

  Mary pulled James away. “He hasn't been right since his parents...um...separated from us. I hope you'll cut him a break.”

  He had his speech prepared. The “We're all gonna die if we don't all work together” speech. But he didn't start it because he could tell it would be pointless. Three days of intense stress had driven some of his fellow police officers over the edge, too. More than a few just faded into the background as things got bad—one second they'd be working, and the next they simply vanished. Most walked off into the crowds, but he knew of one guy who shot himself.

  Right now he had no time to worry about the boy walking off.

  “Do you know how to work a jack?” he asked Mary.

  When she shook her head he bit his tongue to keep his cool. Kids today seemed to lack the most basic mechanical skills. The examples were plentiful, but he drew upon one similar incident at a park a couple of months ago. A young woman—old enough to know better—asked him for help inflating her bicycle tires with a foot pump. A police officer! At the time he could only smile and help, but he made sure she watched him so she wouldn't have to ask next time.

  He'd have to do the same here.

  The car he'd bashed in the rear had loosened its trunk hatch, and he yanked it open with a little extra muscle. The spare tire—not a full-sized tire—and the jack were stowed underneath the carpet. It took them ten minutes to walk through the procedure, but in short order they had all four tires off and stacked in the gap.

  He sent her off to the next car while he searched for another jack.

  In moments, she yelled from the ground next to her target. “The jack thingy doesn't fit these tires. What do I do?”

  It took everything he had not to say something mean. He had to do it all himself, apparently.

  “Hey, walk up the line and see if you can find a car that it fits. If it does, roll the tires up here. We'll get this done.”

  She stood and then moved away. He wanted those tires, but he also wanted her to keep walking. Unfair, perhaps, but the whole day was unfair.

  Kevin had disappeared. Rather than search for him, James got into the trunk of the car he had turned sideways. He rooted around for the jack and spare, but instead found a bright orange bag with emergency roadside tools. There were two of the brightly reflected triangles, an old sweater someone had stuffed in there, and three brand new road flares. The lights above flickered with foreshadowing.

  He snatched them up and found the tire iron for the car. There was no reason not to remove the tires from the sideways-parked car, as it would ensure it couldn't be shoved or otherwise moved by hand. How many zombies would it take to push a tireless-car? There was horsepower, and now zombie power. He imagined an infinite line of them, one behind the other all the way up the spiral of the road, each pushing the one in front of it and creating an unstoppable engine which would wash anything out of its way down here.

  That made him work even faster.

  There were eight tires stacked when Kevin finally showed up.

  “Hey. I found a map.”

  James looked surprised.

  “What? I try to contribute.” He pointed further down into the tunnel. “There's a big alcove up that way.”

  He thought about asking whether Kevin could tell if there was anywhere inside the mine that would make the type of choke point he envisioned but knew that was fantasy. Plus, he wasn't going to put
his trust in the man.

  “Show me.”

  The two ran past Mary, who was—as best James could tell—walking aimlessly around cars, occasionally testing if her tire iron fit or not. Currently, she was on the far side of an Audi. He could hear the clanks of her iron as he ran by.

  In the minute it took to run along the line of cars, Kevin had dropped back quite a ways. Far from being the in-shape golfer James imagined, the man seemed to be a bona fide couch potato, even though he appeared lean and mean.

  “Not used to running, huh?” Jones tried to keep it friendly.

  “No, I run all the time. Ever hear of the 13.1?”

  James had spent his life watching the half-marathon. It was the easiest day of work he could find—sit in a squad car and watch hot mamas run by for three hours. But this guy? A marathon runner? He couldn't think of an appropriate response.

  “It's these shoes. They aren't my normal running shoes, see?” He pointed down to his leather dress shoes.

  “Uh huh.”

  The map was huge. The mining company had flattened one wall of the tunnel and then painted on the roads and chambers for the operation. It was the kind of thing a truck driver could read without getting out of his cab. Their tunnel was marked in green and went deep into the mine on a slight curve. Several different colored cross streets—if he could call them streets—intersected the green road and ran to the distant edges of the map. It reminded him of an elongated checker board with the green line straight down the middle, and large interior spaces interlocked by roadways in all directions away from that middle segment.

  He quickly deduced he had placed his roadblock at the ideal spot. It was far enough back from the opening that he wouldn't risk exposure to too many zombies at once, but it was close enough to the entrance to benefit from natural light—and air. He could defend the entire mine. If he tried to go deeper into the tunnels, the job would be impossible because there were too many branches and splits of the tunnels.

  “What do you think, boss? We good?”

  For once Kevin was right. “Yeah. I think we'll be fine, once we have some more guns.”

  As he began his jog back to the front, the military unit he'd seen earlier finally made it down.

  “About damned time,” he said to himself.

  He felt it in his bones

  The Army guys looked like they'd just run a marathon. Most of them hunched over as they caught their breath. Their arrival had stirred up quite a bit of dust, too, making several of them cough and wheeze. He couldn't help hack a few times as he returned to his makeshift roadblock.

  A winded lieutenant happened to be leaning against his pile of tires. He took a guess the man was in charge.

  “Sir, are you here to protect the survivors down here?”

  The man gave him a sideways glance but was unable to talk for a long minute. James stood uncomfortably next to him until he was ready.

  “You in charge down here?”

  James shook his head no.

  “Who is?”

  “I just got here a little while ago. Been building this blockade to keep them out.” He pointed outside. The military had run the gauntlet and appeared spent, though they would be more prepared than anyone to handle what they'd dragged with them.

  “Yeah, well, they're kind of thick out there.” The lieutenant chuckled, as did a nearby soldier. Then, as his voice steadied, he continued. “I wish I could help, but we're here on orders to go deeper into the mine.”

  He didn't wait for an argument. “All right, rest time's over. Let's go!”

  One of the soldiers near the entrance let loose with a quick burst on his rifle. Then he did it again. Another man joined him and for twenty seconds it was as loud as the Fourth of July.

  The lieutenant, his name tag said Francis, spoke quietly to a nearby soldier after the volley died down. “Get them inside the mine. We can't get bogged down. Go!” The messenger went running back toward the opening.

  James could see what was happening, though he was powerless to stop it.

  “Hey, uh, lieutenant, you can't bring those things in here and then leave. We're trying to prevent them from coming in at all with this roadblock.” He pointed limply at the fruit of his labor, hating he had to point out something so obvious.

  “Can't help you, friend. We're moving out—now!”

  The man who had gone to the opening had returned. The whole unit folded inward, leaving the front door unmanned. It wouldn't be so bad except James could see a trailing band of infected had followed the boisterous Army unit down the road. It would be impossible to stay and hold them off with his pistol and a few sad sack civilians.

  The lights lining the ceiling of the mine flickered, briefly. In that instant, James had touched his flashlight on his belt. He watched as the first few zombies squirted out from the end of the downward ramp and began to make their way to the entrance of the mine. It was like they knew he stood there waiting for them, even though he hadn't moved from behind his barricade.

  Only one man was with him, now.

  “Kevin, we have to follow those soldiers. We can't hold this position ourselves.”

  “Amen, brother. We'll be safe with those bad asses, huh?”

  “Ross, let's go,” he said to the nearby boy.

  Louder, down the tunnel, he yelled: “Mary. We're moving.” He had to shout it several times before she finally showed up. Her hands were covered in black filth, as was a good portion of her face. Her cheeks were smeared, as if she'd been crying.

  “I tried, dammit. I totally wanted to get that first tire off, but it wouldn't budge.”

  “Don't worry about it. We have bigger problems.” A scream from outside the entrance punctuated his statement. There were still survivors out there. Maybe runners who tried to keep up with the Army, or people still hiding in their cars, choosing to make a final lunge to safety. A little bit of everything was out there.

  Mary pulled Ross to his feet, and they started after Kevin, who didn't wait to see if anyone was following him. He seemed keen to keep up with the military guys, as James had suggested.

  James looked at his handiwork with the roadblock. He judged it pretty good, considering it was just him doing most of the work. A few zombies hovered at the entrance already. Without support from other survivors, the blockage would delay them for a few minutes, at best.

  He was going to die down in the mine. He felt it in his bones.

  Even with support, staying alive might be difficult. Keeping up with the Army suddenly seemed like an excellent idea. Whatever else they were doing down in the tunnels, they could at least sweep away zombies. To take advantage of that, he had to get in front them, rather than between them and the zombies as he was at that moment.

  He ran to catch up to Ross and Mary, which was quite easy to do. They were jogging, but not with any great urgency.

  “You guys better hurry. They're in the tunnel now.” It had the intended effect. They picked up the pace.

  He arrived at the map and had to stop once more. The weight of the moment compounded as he could see he was the last person in the line of survivors going deeper into the mine. But the map called to him. He tried to memorize it—find a way to a room with the best chance of a heroic defense. Maybe he could find a narrow passage--hold them off there. Maybe he could find one lousy door he could hide behind. Maybe there was an emergency exit somewhere.

  All these ideas danced in his head, but the bottom line was that if none of those things existed, he could very well be entering his own grave. He studied what he could. It had the complexity of a grid city, but also a logical simplicity. The middle tunnel drilled straight back, with numerous cross streets along the way. He could ignore all of them. In the farthest corner of the map, up near the top on the wall, he saw a room labeled “vertical shaft: restricted.” Just follow the middle green line to the end, then make a left at the blue line and it goes straight back. It was as good a target as any, with simple directions.

  “No
w is the time for a miracle,” he said to himself as he trotted from the map. His people, the Army, and who knows how many other survivors were ahead of him. An untold number of zombies were behind. And no one seemed inclined to help anyone else.

  It had the makings of a perfect disaster.

  Riverside Red

  Mary and Ross had stopped a dozen cars beyond the map. He ran up to them and had to resist, again, the urge to speak his mind. As a police officer, he was well trained in keeping it together in the face of the dumbest things a person could do or say.

  “What are you all waiting for?”

  “We wanted to make sure we didn't lose you.”

  “You and your boyfriend should have kept running with the soldiers. Did you see which way they went?” The tunnels weren't straight; there was a slight curvature along the road. Just enough he couldn't see well ahead of him, or too far down each side tunnel.

  The lights flickered once more. It was a serious prod to move faster.

  “And, if those lights go out we need to be somewhere safe where we can hole up. Get it?”

  Ross had been leaning against a truck. He stood up and pulled Mary with him—further down the green tunnel.

  “Take this as far as you can, then turn left. It should be a blue route.”

  They jogged along the line of cars on the green path. Every make and model he could imagine was parked in the underground roadway, some with lights still on. He almost stopped for a convertible Corvette—one of the originals, in Riverside Red—but he couldn't risk the delay. If the zombies ever went away, and if no one ever came to claim it, he might snag this as his consolation prize for surviving. He was troubled, however, by the feelings he had about hoping the owner wouldn't show up for it…

  There were sports cars, sedans, mini-vans with the cargo doors left open—the owners nowhere to be seen. There were pickup trucks, ambulances, and even a couple tractor trailers. Recreation vehicles. School buses. Many motorcycles dropped on their sides. It spoke to the scale of the tunnel, and the mine.