by SP Durnin
Goodman gazed at his partner, then looked at Jake in defeat. "It's the truth. God help us, he's telling you the truth."
"What's so—"
The radio on Parker's shoulder, squawked and he thumbed the transmit button. "Unit thirty-eight, Parker here."
Goodman had gone white. He sat, hands clenching the countertop, eyes closed, mouthing something that, at least to Jake, looked a lot like No, over and over.
"We're already there, over!" Parker ran for the door with Goodman trailing. "Come on, kid. After Party Boy, you deserve to know."
Jake sprinted after them, composition book forgotten. The two flew around the corner outside with him right on their heels and skidded to a stop before the third store front down the block. Jake looked up to read the sign, but it was written in some form of Middle Eastern dialect which to him resembled a bunch of bugs having an orgy.
Well that's politically correct, he thought ruefully.
Both cops had drawn their weapons and were circling wide past the first window towards the door. Jake followed, falling back on training from his time with the SAS as he moved to their left and slightly to the rear. Parker reached for the door.
"Stay behind me," he murmured. "I mean right fucking behind me."
Jake nodded and Parker yanked open the door, allowing Goodman to make entry to the left. Jake screwed up his courage and followed Parker soundlessly across the convenience store threshold. They crossed the store to put their shoulders against the firewall before slowly gliding towards the rear, heading for the cold cases and beer cave. Goodman was the first in line as they came to the end of the aisle. His eyes went wide and his weapon came up to cover something along the back wall. Parker's came up too, and Jake could see the veteran's eyes playing range finder as he looked for the nearest threat.
What the hell is that noise? Jake thought. Did someone bring a couple of pigs in here and let them into the ice cream?
Then he smelled it. The unmistakable sickly-sweet, copper-tinged reek of blood. He'd smelled it in a little corner of Hell with the SAS. He'd smelled it after the Party Boy rapist stuck four inches of hot pain into his back. Now he smelled it again in the rear of the store, with two scared cops who looked like they'd just seen a ghost.
Jake spun out behind Parker's shoulder and thought he'd gone mad.
Three people were crowded around the body of a fourth, their clothes soiled, but not tattered. They were...
Jake felt his gorge rise.
They were eating.
Usually there's an enormous amount of blood in a human body, but not this one. Instead, it was everywhere else. The floor, the three people kneeling in it, the walls, the glass freezer doors, even the display of jerked beef that looked like…
Don't think! His back-brain screamed at him. Look! Deal with it later!
He watched as the three stuffed globs of flesh into their mouths. He realized all of them had a slight gray tone to their skin and were horribly disfigured. One man was missing half of his face. Jake saw the orb of his eye rolling around in the pulpy mass of damage that had once been a socket. The other man's throat was virtually non-existent. His spine showed through the mess of his neck and the flesh he swallowed simply fell through the bloody hole under his jaw. The woman was missing one eye, her nose, and her lips. All three had gore up to their elbows and smeared down the front of their clothes.
Parker and Goodman cocked their weapons almost in unison and three ruined faces came around to stare at them unblinkingly. Then the horrors abandoned their meal to slowly shuffle towards Jake and the two cops. As they did, a low moan rose from their throats.
"Remember, pick your shots," Parker said calmly. "Far right."
His gun roared and the female was blown backwards, preceded by a plume of grey matter that used to be her brain.
"Far left." Goodman put a round through the mouth of the man with no throat. It went on to shatter the glass of the freezer behind him. He dropped and didn't move again.
"Last one." Parker blew the top of the last man's head off from eight feet away. He fell over backwards and hit what was left of his skull on the floor with a sickening wet smack.
Jake was standing there mouth open, trying to decide whether or not to puke, when the body they'd been eating moved. It jerked and convulsed erratically. After about a minute, it sat up. The man wore a turban and had a kindly visage. At least he would've, if he'd had anything left of it. Along with a gaping chest wound, most of his left forearm had been eaten away and they'd chewed flesh from his face.
"Watch." Parker leveled his weapon and shot the man in the chest. Jake saw bits of lung fly out from his back and splatter over the shelf full of Combos behind him. The man just looked at them.
Parker shot him again. This time he blew a chunk of one shoulder away.
The man began to stand up.
Parker took aim a final time, fired, and the man's skull all but exploded. He sat back down heavily and, with the hole between his eyes just beginning to seep a trickle of blood, fell over dead.
That was when Jake saw movement out of the corner of his right eye.
Utter terror pumped adrenaline into his bloodstream, lending him speed. Threat-activated reflexes honed during his time with the shooters of the SAS went into overdrive and Jake sent a high, powerful side-kick whipping out at head level. The reaction saved his life.
The fourth assailant had been lying behind an overturned Hostess display. It had been a twenty-something Caucasian man, wearing a hippie tie-dyed shirt, cut-off jeans, and flip-flops. The whole bottom half of his face and most of his throat had been torn... no, chewed away, allowing parts of his trachea and esophagus to dangle beneath his jaw line. It's was also missing its left hand. Which was all that kept it from grabbing the edge of the soda cooler to stay vertical after catching Jake's kick square in the yellow teeth. He slid a good ten yards down the aisle, finally coming to rest under the Slushy machine.
"Holy shit!" Jake yelled, jumping away from the putrid horror towards the beer cooler. Goodman and Parker moved up beside him as the thing began to gather itself, slowly rising to its feet. They looked at one another, nodded, and each blew out one of its kneecaps. What had once been a righteous dude hit the floor face first with the full weight of its rotting body. Parker moved quickly forward and firmly put his foot down on the back of its neck.
"Watch." he said, and quickly put two rounds through the struggling things back. It kept moving, trying to push up from the scuffed linoleum with its one remaining hand. Jake had seen enough entry wounds to know that Parker had put both rounds through the man's heart. They didn't have any effect.
The cop shifted his aim, squeezed the trigger on his Beretta again, and the thing's head bounced off the floor with the impact of the round. The hippie went limp and didn't move again.
The three of them stood there for a few minutes, staring at the puddle of foul-smelling liquid spreading from the head of the now-still corpse. Jake reached for his smokes, took one for himself, and gave one to each of the cops. He grabbed a disposable lighter from the rack on the register counter, lit them all, and took in the carnage.
"You understand now?" Parker demanded. "You understand what's coming?"
Jake looked back at the dead man with the now blood-soaked turban. His nametag read Abdul. He was happy to help you.
Jake turned back to Goodman, who seemed close to having a breakdown, then to Parker. The older man's gaze was strong, but his voice broke as he asked, "You know what they were, right?"
Jake drew smoke into his lungs, exhaled, and tasted copper again.
"Zombies."
* * *
Laurel was sleeping soundly.
After Jake left, the day's long work hours had taken their toll, making her feel like her head was full of wet cotton. She'd crawled into bed after removing her clothes and slipping on a slightly oversized baseball jersey, leaving her underwear on out of habit. She was never quite comfortable sleeping in the buff.
Th
e dreams began soon after her head touched the pillow. Laurel dreamt of pale blue eyes, the smell of smoke and cedar, and unruly hair.
As dreams often are, they were reinforced and made even more real through her movements, as she slept. External stimuli… influencing of the subconscious, a shrink would say. The collar of her shirt moving as she rolled to one side became the brush of lips against her throat. Her hair against her face became the gentle touch of a hand on her cheek, causing her to sigh with pleasure. The sounds of her own breathing became a soft voice in her ear. Her mind cycled through the events of the day and brought her the image of Jake's face.
The dream sped up. She and Jake ran through the woods together, bare feet speeding over the turf. They shot down forest paths, wind moving across their naked bodies, cooling them in the shadows of the trees. They coupled wildly in the moonlight, moving with the mad desperation of animals who knew nothing of death.
Her slumbering moans melded with sounds from outside. Revving engines and the sounds of panic, punctuated by the stray gunshot. The occasional scream or cry brought more images of moon-slick skin and heat to her floating psyche.
She knew nothing of the nightmare just beyond the walls and passed the night in dreams.
* * *
Tracy Dixon's building had become a slaughterhouse.
It was only a matter of time before someone noticed.
Not that it would make a bit of difference.
In every city, in every country, it was happening.
Thousands had been turned in the last hours. In remote places like the Northern Ukraine and isolated areas of South America everything human had already been consumed, leaving only empty buildings and bloody streets. Here and there the occasional ghoul dragged itself along with its arms, because someone had got in a lucky shot with an ax or a small caliber gun, but those were few. Most members of the military, and even law enforcement, had been trained to go for the center mass, the primary organs.
The dead didn't need them.
They never felt the bullets entering their bodies. By the time Jake and Laurel were beginning to feel each other out with words, the number of dead worldwide was creeping towards the million member mark.
And their numbers continued to grow.
The riots were beginning. Real ones this time. People were starting to panic. Some locked themselves in their homes. Some began the exodus out of the cities. Some decided it was hopeless and went to their places of worship, or chose to end it all in a variety of methods.
Military force was coming into play, but far, far too slowly. Besides which, the military had a finite number to work with, while the opposition's numbers rose sharply.
The media didn't help matters. What with all the live reports and minute by minute coverage, they were whipping people into a frenzy. Pictures of Baghdad, London, Hong Kong, Moscow, Washington, all in living color. All showing an ever increasing number of atrocities.
The world took a breath to scream…
Chapter Five
Jake brought the Beast skidding to a halt on the sidewalk in front of his building. He'd been a man possessed, broken every traffic law he knew, racing for his apartment.
It had taken almost an hour, due to one stop—a hardware store with a smashed front window where someone had tried to steal a snow blower of all things.
He'd jumped through the broken glass, remembering what Master Sergeant Molly Sloan drilled into the newbies during their first few weeks with the SAS.
First thing ta do in a hand-to-hand fight is t' arm yerself, she growled. A knife, a pencil, a brick...hell, even tha' top of your 'ead is a handy four kilogram weight tha' can crush a bugger's nose.
Jake tried very hard not to think about Molly in the seconds it took him to dash down the small center aisle and pull a large crowbar out of the discount tool bin. Then he quickly jogged back out through the display window, thrown the tool in his passenger seat and roared towards home.
People started to flee the city. He had to swerve around countless cars that had collided and just been left. Their drivers, opting to flee on Shank's Mare, sometimes only made it a dozen yards due to their injuries. Many still roamed the streets, but they would never drive again. All they'd do, forever, was shuffle about, looking for someone to eat. There were occasional groups of the living running blindly, yelling for him to stop. Some waved handfuls of money as they screamed frantically, offering thousands of dollars if he'd only let them ride along.
Jake avoided them to keep them from leaping in front of the Beast's tires in their desperation. It killed something inside him, but he did it.
George Foster was at the front door armed with a SPAZ riot shotgun as Jake leapt from his vehicle, crowbar in hand. The crusty old warrior pulled the security gate and opened the door as he took in the younger man's frantic expression.
"Hell of a night eh, kid?" George exhaled fragrant Cuban and secured the door again. "I never would'a expected the end to be caused by dead cannibals. Thought we'd nuke each other into oblivion."
Jake stared at him. "How?"
George began walking through the lobby. "I do know what the Internet is. Even if I didn't, the emergency channels are going nuts. The police are particularly chatty, but they're getting their asses handed to 'em. Oh, Allen's up in your place. He had the key, so I didn't bust his chops."
"Allen's here?" Jake demanded. "That's good news. I'm going to need him."
George cradled the SPAZ across his body. "You lookin' to die? Goin' back out there's a real bad idea."
"I don't have a choice."
Foster said nothing.
Jake looked at him like someone was holding his toes over a fire. "I have to go, but I need backup. Al's good in a fight. He's tougher than he looks."
Foster sniffed. "See me on the way out."
* * *
The graying man watched Jake race for the stairs and, with a leery expression, headed for his office. Fool kid was gonna get himself snuffed. George thought for a second and moved to his industrial filing cabinet in the corner, thanking his younger self for choosing a career that allowed him to prepare for situations like this.
* * *
Jake raced up to his fourth floor apartment, unlocked the door, and burst into his living room. The run up had only taken him about thirty seconds, but it was time that he wasn't on the way to Laurel.
"Al!" He yelled, kicking the door shut and dropping his coat behind him on the fly.
The mechanic's head came up from beside the couch, looking frazzled. Jake shot towards his spare room. "Al, I need you to…"
He came to an abrupt halt as he rounded his couch. Kat lay twined beneath his friend, hair splayed out like a dark blue puddle, wearing nothing but a pair of panties with a banzai symbol emblazoned on the front. Jake had an unobstructed view down the length of her body and silently admitted to himself that her great abs were the least of her attributes. Not a tan line in sight.
She had a Hello Kitty tattoo on the inside of her right hip, half covered by the panties.
Allen wore only a pair of tighty-whities. Badly.
Kat's upside-down face considered Jake calmly with mild surprise. "I thought you weren't into threesomes?"
"What?" Jake asked, numb from the unanticipated image of Allen in his underwear. He was doubtless going to need therapy after today.
"Hey…" Allen stood and helped Kat to her feet. "I, uh, didn't think you'd be back tonight. We would've gone to my apartment, but its way up on the north end and since you were busy...well..."
"What? "Jake echoed again.
"We can go to my place if you want." Kat bent at the waist to pick up her shirt, causing two sets of eyes to bug-out, as she pulled it over her head. She pretended not to notice.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Jake exclaimed, arms flailing out in exasperation. "Don't you know what's going on?"
The pair gave him a look reserved for people who hold conversations with themselves in public. Out loud.
&nbs
p; "Shit!" Jake clenched his head between his hands, like he was trying to keep his brain from exploding. "There's no time for this! Get dressed, the both of you! I'm leaving in three minutes. Kat, turn on any TV station. Make sure you're sitting down beforehand and be prepared for a shock. Al, call your dad. Tell him to take your mom and your sisters and get the hell out of town. Don't think! Do it! I need to gather some things!"
Jake bolted down his short hallway and disappeared. The sound of objects being tossed around came from his spare room as the two of them pulled on their clothes.
* * *
"It's been a rough night for him," Allen said helpfully, tugging on his socks.
"I understand." Kat plunked down on Jake's couch and reached for the remote. "It's not every day you meet someone who you want to jump 'til their bones rattle. They'll both be a lot calmer once they get it over with."
* * *
Jake was in his bedroom, tossing everything in his closet across the floor. He pulled on his SAS tactical harness and donned it, making sure nothing was loose. He pulled on a pair of Nomex gloves, a set of action pads—really just high-grade elbow protectors—still used by military personnel around the world and grabbed his bug-out bag. It was a habit common in the Special Forces to keep a pack stocked for emergencies. Spare clothes, matches, compass, a good knife, things like that. Jake had maintained one after he came back from England, because it seemed like a good idea in this age of everything from terrorist attacks to killer hurricanes. He hefted the pack, gauging its weight. It would slow his movements and would add to his mass, so he'd leave it in the Beast when the time came. He'd seen some of those things in action, and he didn't want to give them a bigger target to latch onto if it came to close quarters fighting. Jake hurried back to the living room to find—thankfully, for two very different reasons—the others were fully clothed again.