“Hardy! Winters!” Dick-head shouted, still gripping his pistol, with white knuckles. At this point, I realized that happened to be the other officers’ names.
Odd, I thought. My partner’s last name is Winters also, wonder if there was any relation. I know he has a kid in the prison system, guard that is not inmate. Not sure if he has any relations in the police department; I’ll have to remember to ask.
I noticed off to my left, Officer Winters’ legs begin to twitch inside of the car. A hand slowly seemed to grasp for the door, trying to gain purchase, shaky and unsteady. Not Winters’ hand, mind you. Unless Officer Winters wore a bright-pink watch and a marquise diamond ring that would make the average man say, Holy shit, how did you afford that?, and had the kind of hands that you would find in a jewelry catalogue out of JCPenny.
The boy stumbled forward, looking slightly confused, like when you pretend to throw a scrap of bacon to a dog. The dog then spins around the room for a moment and then looks at you as if to say, What the hell, man?
Officer Dick-head took a step back and, in effect, left me closer to the boy. The boy eyed me with the look of someone who had a serious case of the munchies. I inadvertently took a step back as well. Dick-head looked at me, and I nodded and drew my sidearm slowly. The boy crept closer.
Officer Dick-head shouted, “Stop right there, kid!” I noticed his finger slip off the trigger guard and into firing position.
Holy shit, I thought, he is actually going to shoot this kid. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed people starting to slunk out of their cars, trying to get a better angle of the action. “Fuck!” I said out loud without realizing it.
There was a commotion at the SUV. The door suddenly shook on its hinges, and a woman’s body slumped out of the car, sliding over top of the still form of Radio Cop um . . . Winters, I suppose was his name, at least that’s what Dick-head had called him. The woman hit the ground with a wet thud. Blood pooled from her mouth, seeping down to the pavement. Slowly she raised her face, and Dick-head and I gasped. Her cheek had been torn completely off, exposing bloody teeth and muscle tissue. Jagged pieces of cheekbone protruded at awkward angles on her otherwise attractive face. My first instinct had been to run over to the woman and see if I could help her. However, her expression seemed to drain my body of blood, starting at my head and ending at my toes. Every single hair on my body stood on end, and a chill settled in my chest and spread out to my fingertips in waves. Anxiety, I realized, and I had to force myself to calm down, to breathe. I held my gun in my hands and sighted down the barrel. Although at first glance, she was a meek slender wisp of a woman, something in the inner recesses of my mind, in the areas ingrained in all of us, the areas built in for survival, perceived this woman as an immediate threat, and I turned the business end of my weapon in her direction.
Her sightless eyes locked on mine, and she let out a terrible hiss. Fighting the instinct to turn tail and haul ass to anywhere but here, I took a chance, and glanced over at the police officer standing next to me. He was frozen in place, his eyes never leaving the child and his fallen comrades behind him.
“Hey, hey!” I shouted to Officer Dick-head. He jumped at the sound of my voice and glanced at me over his shoulder. “What do you wanna do? Shouldn’t you call this in or something? You know, call for backup, Dann-o,” I said with a slight edge of sarcasm. Don’t judge me; it’s a defense mechanism. The officer nodded his head, reached for the microphone clipped to his shoulder, and keyed the receiver.
“Dispatch, this is unit fifty-three requesting backup multiple ten fifty-threes, two suspects ten dash twenty-nine H,” Dick-head said, sounding like he was programmed, which in a way he was.
My police lingo was not the best. In the military, we had an entirely different code structure, which I had to deprogram and adapt when I became an armored officer. In that code, what he said didn’t make any sense; basically in our lingo, he just said he had multiple bathroom breaks and was stopping to grab a sandwich. I shook the thought of the man sitting in a bathroom with his tighty-whiteys around his ankles eating a sub from my mind. Although I mused, that would be an extremely efficient way to gain nourishment while ridding the body of toxins. I searched my memory and figured out he said something along the lines that there were multiple men down, and the suspects were extremely hazardous.
Yeah, no shit, I thought. The radio chirped, but before we had a chance to register something that was being said, the woman and the child both seemed to spring at once. The boy, being closer, ran straight for Dick-head, looking like some savage cross between Dennis the Menace and a fucked up Eddie Munster.
The boy barreled into Dick-head’s legs, causing him to lose his footing. His firearm discharged, sending a .44 caliber hollow point into the rear windshield of a police cruiser. The windshield popped and spider-webbed into thousands of tiny cracks, screams from the observers in the idling cars sounded with deafening alarm. The cop fell on his ass and tried to scramble away from the snarling boy. His sidearm skittered across the pavement and came to a halt under the rear tire of his police cruiser.
“Shit, shit.” Dick-head whimpered, trying desperately to put some distance between him and the crazed child. The child fell on him and sank his teeth into the heel of the officer’s boot. “What the hell is wrong with him?” the cop shouted desperately and kicked with his free leg, trying to dislodge the boy.
The woman took me by surprise as I was momentarily distracted by the child. I instinctively opened fire as my training took over. I fired two shots. One went wide and missed her completely; the other struck her in the shoulder and sent her spinning around. She fell to her knees stunned momentarily. Time, seemed to slow down as adrenaline flooded my body. Noises were muffled, and the world seemed to take an almost dreamlike quality. Everything moved in slow motion.
I noticed the first officer who was attacked begin to convulse once more. Suddenly, he shot up, his eyes flaring wide. His pupils looked impossibly large, like black disks. He let out a scream that sounded so shrill it was practically inhuman.
Officer Dick-head continued to struggle unsuccessfully, the child still gnawing on his boot.
“Help!” he shouted over to me. I looked at him dazed for a moment, holding my gun downrange, watching the woman struggle to get back to her feet. It registered what the cop was yelling to me, and I snapped out of it.
“Hang on!” I shouted and ran around to the cop. I frantically glanced between the woman and now the flashlight guy, who were both struggling to get to their feet. I grabbed the boy by the back of his shirt and yanked him off the cop. The boy kicked and flailed in my hands, and I was forced to toss him aside like a sack of potatoes. His mouth snapped and snarled in midair as he fell to the ground and landed with a thud.
Quickly, I helped Dick-head up to his feet. I scanned the area and noticed that another figure was standing to my left.
Radio Cop had appeared on his feet again, which, by the looks of him, was impossible. He stood there, a ragged, bloody mass of skin, bone, and cartilage hanging around the area of where his throat should be. Blood still seeped from the wound and stained his gray wool shirt and tie.
Someone off to my left, a woman I think, let out a shrill scream upon seeing the officer’s mangled form. His gaze left Officer Dick-head’s and my direction and seemed to focus on the source of the noise. His arms outstretched and his mouth agape, he let out what I could only imagine was a moan; however, all that emanated from him was a gurgling seepage of air escaping through the ragged hole in his throat. Blood bubbled out of the opening, and I had to steel myself against a wave of nausea. I looked over at Dick-head, and both of us stared at each other in disbelief.
A shrill scream sounded to our left as Radio Cop latched on to a woman in a Volkswagen Bug. She had been recording the entire endeavor with her smartphone. He grabbed her arm and was pulling it to his gaping mouth when I was suddenly knocked backward.
My head struck asphalt, and white bursts of light cloude
d my vision. I felt something heavy on top of me, clawing at my chest. As my vision cleared, I realized it was the woman whom I had shot only moments before. I felt her mouth ripping at my chest, and I struggled to raise my gun. At this range, it would most likely be suicide to open fire. I don’t care what you see in the movies; shooting someone that is right up against you is never a good idea. Bullets react funny when they strike bone; they can go all sorts of ways, including into me. I chose to bash her in the skull with the barrel of my gun. I cocked my arm back and struck her as hard as I could manage. The blow I administered would have taken down a 260 pound meth head; this meek woman with a gunshot wound and a mangled face hadn’t even flinched. I think all I managed to do was piss her off. I looked frantically around for Officer Dick-head, seeking help, and noticed the boy and flashlight guy stumbling my way.
Shit, I thought, struggling underneath the weight of this crazy-ass woman. “Where in the hell did that son-of-a-bitch run off to?” I said, trying my best to look around the area. It was at that point I came to a decision. I have a wife and five kids, and I am not planning on checking out today. Not here, not in the middle of a goddamn traffic jam. I raised my gun up, put the barrel to the back of the woman’s head, and said a small prayer. Hoping that the bullet would be deflected by my vest and not bounce off into my forehead. I put my finger on the trigger. At that moment, there was a large crash behind me. I craned my head backward to see what this new threat was. Cars were being strewn out of the way as something large, something powerful barreled through them. A sound of metal scraping on metal flooded my ears and then was followed by the blaring of a horn.
Oh shit, I thought as the upside-down image of an armored car plowed its way toward me. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I said as it registered in my mind what my partner was planning. We had an unspoken rule on the trucks. In the case of a robbery, our drivers were instructed to leave the area, thus taking away the temptation from the perp. This was good in theory but wound up leaving officers like me pretty much screwed, and at the mercy of some pissed-off crook that just had his cookie jar taken away.
“I might be ordered to leave, but nothing says I can’t hit the bastard on the way out,” was what my partner had always said. He spotted me and gunned the engine. Black smoke poured from the exhaust pipe as he revved the engine. He brought the truck’s rpm’s up to speed and surged forward. Wet gravel slung from under the truck’s enormous wheels and sprayed the surrounding traffic as the tires sought purchase on the soggy asphalt
Quickly, I grabbed hold of the snarling woman, with both hands grasping onto her shoulders. I thrust my knee into her gut and dislodged her mouth from my shirt. Brackish thick blood, drool, and mucus clung to my shirt, stretching into long, thin tendrils as I thrust her upward—just as the fifty-five thousand pound armored beast roared over top of me.
The bumper connected with the top of her head and snapped her neck backward with an audible crack. Her face scraped along the oil and dirt-encrusted surface and began to tear away flesh in chunks. I watched as her noggin bounced up and down as the undercarriage passed over and peeled her face off in beef-jerky-sized strips. I could almost hear the wet slurping sound as the flesh tore, even though thinking about it later, I knew that was impossible due to the intense rumbling noise the truck made. Flecks of blood and bone showered my face. I squeezed my eyes and mouth shut and held onto her as hard as I could. The reverberation of the impacts sent shockwaves down my arm, grinding my elbow into the pavement, and I almost lost my grip. Then the muffler connected with the side of her ruined face and ripped her head completely off. Her body went slack in my now-bruised hands. A thick viscous blood seeped from the wound and pooled around my neck, running underneath my ballistic vest. I was almost amazed at how slow the blood seemed to trickle out. Arterial blood always shot out hard and heavy like turning on a fire hose.
The truck came to a halt just before it had completely passed me over. My arms struggled against the dead weight and finally gave out trembling. I dropped the corpse, and she landed hard onto my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I saw fading at the edge of my vision, and I fought to take in ragged breaths to prevent myself from passing out. My ears rang, and I could hear the blood rushing through them. There was an audible pop and muffled footsteps; then something grabbed me. Panic shot through me as I thought it was one of those things out there coming back for seconds. Officer Dick-head pulled with all his might, managing to slide me out from underneath of the dead woman’s corpse and the truck. He helped me to my feet, and I staggered, almost losing my footing.
“Come on!” he shouted, half carrying, half dragging me to the side door of the truck. One arm positioned under my armpits while the other, I noticed, carried my brand new Mossberg. The door to the truck popped open, and a familiar voice shouted.
“Get your candy asses in here!” said Marvin, and the cop shoved me inside. I hit the reinforced metal floor and crawled my way in. Pain was starting to register in my arms from the repeated impacts with the roadway. I gritted my teeth against the pain and moved myself forward to make room for Officer Dick-head. “Look out!” Marvin shouted out to the policeman.
The cop whirled around and fired a shot, knocking one of his former partners in the chest, sending him sprawling to the ground. The crazed officer was unfazed and was getting back to his feet to have another go.
Dick-head hastily climbed into the cab, and Marvin shut the door and slammed down on a red button located on the dash. Loud clicks sounded around the interior of the truck as the automatic throw bolts slid into place and sealed the truck up tight. The truck rocked with impacts as several people plowed into the sides of it.
I managed to get to my feet and peer out the window. At first, all I saw was the two cops and the little boy. They pounded fruitlessly onto the sides of the armored vehicle, and then there were more, a lot more—passengers of the trapped cars. I realized some of them still clutching their cell phones in their bloodied hands.
“What the fuck,” I breathed out in disbelief.
Marvin twisted around in his seat and looked at me and then to the heavily breathing cop and then back. “Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”
Interlude 1
Director Don Hammond sat behind a heavy oak desk in the office of Homeland Security located on the outskirts of BWI airport. He thumbed through a stack of reports that had cluttered his desk for the past week and sighed.
All dead ends, he thought. They had been tracking a suspected group of homegrown terrorists with the aid of the FBI and the NSA, so far with absolutely nothing to show for it except some vague money trails. Some suggesting ties to Al-Qaeda, others to North Korea, however, nothing definitive, and perhaps as far as the intel was concerned, not even related. Don dropped the stack of reports on to his desk, cupped his face in his hands, and rubbed his eyes. The familiar pain of heartburn began creeping up to his throat, and he swallowed hard in an effort to force the acid back down. He reached across his desk and grabbed a cup of coffee sitting on a plate warmer and took a sip. He scowled and set the cup down on the edge of his desk, reaching into a drawer by his side. He rummaged around and produced a bottle of Irish whiskey. He unscrewed the cap and poured a bolt into his steaming cup. A knock at the door startled him, and he fumbled with the bottle, hurriedly trying to replace the cap. He stashed the bottle back into the recesses of his dark cherrywood-finished desk, and said, “Yes. Come in.”
A slender man in his mid-forties entered the scantly adorned office of Director Hammond. In the office sat two burgundy leather office chairs facing the director’s large wooden desk. Stacks of unread file folders brimming with reports lay somewhat strewn about the office. The director’s waste basket was overflowing with crumpled-up papers that now spilled over and onto the gray-brown carpeted floor. Light illuminated the office from a single bay window off to the agent’s left, casting an almost-cold and sterile hue in the small room. The agent wore a navy-blue business suit that had a
ppeared to be ironed and had a tight, crisp look to it. The man ran his fingers through his neatly trimmed graying hair. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, detecting the faint alcoholic scent of whiskey that hung in the air.
This early in the morning, he thought to himself and eyed the director dubiously. He held a manila file folder in his hands containing the first action reports of the day. Only 9:00 a.m. and the folder was already a half an inch thick. The director eyed the folder and raised an eyebrow.
“Already, Bishop? I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” Director Hammond said with a sigh.
Alex Bishop glanced at the coffee mug on the director’s desk and smirked. “My thoughts exactly, sir,” he said coldly.
Hammond frowned and snatched the folder from Agent Bishop’s outstretched hand, and then pretended to skim over the action reports. Alex Bishop was an ambitious weasel and after Hammond’s job, and he knew it. Standing there, showing off in his pressed suit and silk tie, the director could almost swear the man had eyeliner on as he stared intently at Bishop’s dark piercing blue eyes. If Hammond could find anything to fault the man on, he would gladly send him over to the TSA giving strip searches to fat men with herpes at the airport; unfortunately for Hammond, Bishop’s record was flawless.
“Anything actually worth my attention here, Bishop, or is this just more fodder for the paper shredder?” Hammond said slightly annoyed at the fact Bishop was still standing there.
“Mostly the usual, sir. Guns, drugs, money and a bomb threat or two. There was one report that stuck out from the rest, though. The call came in just a few moments ago via cell phone from one of our agents stuck in a traffic jam. Called to tell us he was running late when seemingly all hell broke loose. Police involved shooting apparently—”
Hammond cut him off with a wave of his hand. “What the hell does a police shooting on the road have to do with Homeland, Bishop?” Hammond shot Bishop an irritated glance.
Dead Pulse Rising: A Zombie Novel Page 4