“Now what’s going on?” asked Dharma.
“I don’t know,” said Vinnie, craning his neck to get a good look. “There’re cops blocking off the pier.”
“Do you think something happened? Maybe it has to do with the repairs.”
“Let’s have a look.”
They pushed their way into the crowd and meandered their way towards the front, where an officer was ordering people to get back.
“What’s going on?” shouted Dharma to the officer.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” snapped the officer. “Move along.”
Dharma frowned. “Well, that was rude.”
“Maybe there’s something wrong with the pier,” offered Vinnie.
“I heard there’s a little girl who freaked out by the haunted house,” said a woman behind them talking to her girlfriend.
Her girlfriend shook her head. “Why are they blocking off the whole pier for a little girl?”
Dharma was looking between bodies, trying to get a good look. She tugged at Vinnie’s sleeve. “Look, Vin, it’s Mike.”
Mike Brunello was standing on the other side of the blockade by a young female police officer, with his back turned to the crowd.
Vinnie cupped his hands over the sides of his mouth to amplify his voice. “Mike!”
Mike almost looked over his shoulder, but he was really preoccupied with whatever was happening on the pier.
Vinnie tried again, waving his hands in the air. “Mike! Mike Brunello!”
This time, Mike turned around. He was white as a ghost. He searched the crowd and saw Vinnie. “Vinnie! What are you doing here?”
Vinnie and Dharma squeezed their way to the front of the crowd, apologizing as they jostled other spectators.
“Mike, what’s going on?” Vinnie asked.
Mike’s aghast expression grew stern. “You shouldn’t be here. The both of you, go home!”
This was not the reception Vinnie expected from his old friend. He and Dharma looked at each other, perplexed.
“What’s wrong, Mike?” pressed Dharma.
Mike was now face-to-face with Vinnie, the officer behind him eying him suspiciously. “Vinnie, take Dharma and get out of here.” Vinnie was about to say something, but Mike interrupted him. “There’s a problem at the Creeping Dead.”
At first, Vinnie wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“Vinnie, remember that horrible night on the carousel with Dharma, the kids, and Nancy?”
Mike’s words summoned the mental image of hands reaching under the metal gates of Blackbeard’s Arcade. He heard the moans of the dead.
“Vinnie, the Creeping Dead.” He said the last part more slowly and with great emphasis.
The female officer pulled Mike away and stood between him and the crowd.
Vinnie was stupefied into silence.
Dharma pulled him close and spoke in low tones. “Jesus, Vin? Why would he say that?”
Vinnie snapped out of it and grabbed Dharma by the arm.
“Hey,” she protested.
Vinnie spoke softly into her ear as they walked away and back in the direction from whence they came. “Dharma, he’s talking about the fucking zombies.”
“Why would he…?” Then it dawned on her. “You don’t think…?”
“If he told us to get away, I’m listening.”
“What about him? Why is he with that police officer?”
“Something’s going on,” said Vinnie. “I don’t like it.”
“But it’s been two years. Two years.”
“I told you it wasn’t over.”
“We don’t know…”
“That’s right,” interrupted Vinnie. “We don’t know anything. We don’t know that those things are back. We don’t know if there are more of them.”
Dharma looked back over her shoulder at the growing crowd at the opening to the pier. People had their cell phones out, taking pictures and videos. She remembered two years ago when people were being attacked on the boardwalk, and instead of people trying to help, they stood there taking videos for social media. She was overcome with revulsion and disgust, but as Mike’s words replayed in her head, it quickly gave way to stark terror.
She prayed Vinnie was wrong.
Chapter 5
Chief Holbrook sat in the back of his car as it crawled through the haunted house, gun drawn, scanning the dark area in front of him. The car rode on a track, and the sweep of his flashlight revealed that there was quite a bit of room on either side of him.
Tinny, creepy music blared from speakers overhead, and a light illuminated a graveyard scene ahead. Fans blew warm, stale air around, simulating wind, as Holbrook considered his options. He holstered his weapon and instead produced his retractable baton, extending it. He couldn’t fire inside the haunted house, at least not until the ride came to a stop, which meant all riders were off.
He also wondered what the optics would be of a police chief entering a ride and shooting a child passenger, all without the benefit of Protocol Z. There were enough police shootings in the news.
As his car approached the foam gravestones, two zombie figures popped up from behind them and screamed. Holbrook thought they looked and sounded nothing like the real thing. However, he tried not to focus on the effects. He was scanning for April.
The car turned and winded along the track, passing a medieval torture scene. A body lay on a table, shackled, as a rotund ghoulish figure stood over it with a butcher’s knife. There were screams and pleading, much like Holbrook heard during the attack two years ago. The dead were unsympathetic to the cries of their victims as they were pulled apart and eaten alive.
Holbrook waved his baton back and forth, sweeping the area ahead with his flashlight in his other hand, not trusting his eyes in the darkness. Until all of the emergency lights went on, finding a zombie April would be like finding a needle in a haystack amongst the horror effects.
He passed into a narrow corridor lined with digital, illuminated portraits of figures from past eras. As he passed each one, triggering sensors, the figures changed, leaping out at him, looking ghastly and demonic.
He tried not to startle, but he did anyway. He was on edge, frantically scanning the darkness. A face lunged at him, but it wasn’t from one of the portraits. April screeched as she reached forward, swatting his baton away, eyes hungry and furious.
Holbrook sat back in his seat as April climbed into the front seat of the car. He recovered and swatted at her, landing blows on her shoulders and her arms. If she were a live girl, the blows would’ve been painful as they broke her bones.
Their car passed another scene of torture, and a dragon’s head the popped out from the right, breathing fire made from jagged orange and red fabric flapping in the breeze of a small fan.
April was unfazed. She raised her head and cried out in ferocity, projectile vomiting on Holbrook. He screamed and wriggled in his seat, turning his head away from the spewed gore.
She lunged forward, clawing at his outfit with broken fingernails, snapping her jaws. Holbrook placed his baton horizontally across his face, holding on to each end, as she bit down on it, shattering her teeth.
He pulled his knees to his chest, raised his feet, and kicked her in the chest as hard as he could, sending her flying out of the car and to the right. Behind her, a tall vampire loomed, cast in a strobe light as the sounds of thunder blasted over the speakers.
Holbrook rolled backwards out of the car and onto the track, the metal digging into his back. He cried out in pain and horror as the ride halted and the lights came on. The animatronics went silent. Holbrook crouched on the track, his gun drawn and trained at the car in front of him.
The emergency lights weren’t as bright as he had hoped, but he was able to see that April was no longer in the car. He was also able to see that the tracks pitched upward ahead into a narrow corridor going to a second floor. He had dropped his flashlight when she had surprised him. He leaned over the back of the car
, gun trained forward, and saw the flashlight lying on the floor.
He righted himself, swung a leg over, eyes vigilant and gun pointed forward, slid his butt over the back edge, and swung his other leg into the car. He reached down and grabbed it.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when his radio crackled. “The last passengers are off. You all right, Chief?” It was Becky.
He grabbed his radio. “Ten-four. She’s a zombie all right. Nearly bit my face off.” He looked down at his shirt. It was covered in chunks of gore. It was all the evidence he needed to satisfy Protocol Z, only that there wasn’t a witness.
“Do you want me to come in?” asked Becky.
“Why, so we can shoot each other? Man the exit. I’ll force her out to you. Head shots only.”
His radio crackled. “Ten-four, Chief.”
He reached down and grabbed his baton, retracted it, and slid it back into its holster on his belt. He climbed over the front of the car, looking down before planting his feet between the tracks, and began to creep up the incline.
He swept the dim corridor with his flashlight and gun, clearing it foot by foot. There were rattling sounds ahead, as if props were being jostled. As Holbrook reached the crest, he lowered himself towards the ground, peeking over the rise.
There was a witch rocking back and forth on its stand, as if something had just bumped it. He rose to his feet and entered the second level. The walls appeared as if they were closing in, creating a bottleneck. Fewer places for her to hide, but also less room for him to maneuver.
He flashed his light back and forth, scanning the narrow corridor. He crept up to the witch, taking small, measured steps, gun sweeping back and forth. He heard wheezing from behind the witch. April was hiding. Waiting.
“April, it’s Chief Holbrook,” he said out loud. “Why don’t you come out? I want to help you.”
There were grunts and growling from behind the witch. It sounded like a bobcat.
“Come on, April. I’m not going to hurt you.” He crept closer. He put his flashlight down, produced his baton, and flicked his wrist to extend it. He reached out, poking the witch mannequin, pushing it aside with the baton.
The wheezing stopped.
April lunged out at Chief Holbrook, teeth bared. She was fast, too fast for him to react. She shoved his gun aside and tackled him to the ground, the metal tracks biting into his back once again.
Her face hovered over his as she laughed like a demonically possessed girl from some horror movie. Her eyes were white, and her grin wicked. She drooled on him. He turned his face to the side to avoid the spittle and prepare for the coming bite.
She raised her head up, screeched, and vomited all over him, covering him in blood, bile, and the contents of her stomach. Half-digested fingertips landed on his chest and neck as he wailed.
He looked up, his vision blurry from bodily fluids, and saw April’s head jerk to the side, knocking her off of him.
Becky reached down and pulled him away. “Jesus, Chief! Are you okay?” Her other hand trained her gun on April. But when she looked up, the little girl was gone.
Holbrook struggled to his feet. “Quick, she’s going back out the entrance!”
They were close to the exit, so they continued through the ride as Becky hit the radio. “Be advised, the subject is fleeing out the entrance of the ride. We have a positive for Protocol Z. Repeat, we have a positive for Protocol Z.”
As they collided with the exit doors and burst out into the sunlight, their vision was momentarily whitewashed.
As Holbrook’s vision cleared, he heard the other officers shouting at April to freeze. He rubbed his eyes and wiped the blood from his face as Becky pulled him out of the line of fire.
April stopped in her tracks, snarling at the officers, eyes wild. Covered in dirt and blood, her clothes torn, she looked like a feral child. She took a step forward, and the officers again issued commands for her to stop.
Marney Traub was being restrained by two officers as she cried out for April, but April didn’t even regard her with a single glance.
A grotesque smile split her face, both impish and hateful, and she continued to advance towards the officers. Holbrook heard noises from the crowd behind the barrier at the other end of the pier.
One of the officers shot her with the taser, the barbs digging into her chest. The surge of electricity caused her to stagger for a moment.
Marney Traub struggled to free herself, shouting at the officer who shot the taser, “Don’t you hurt her! Don’t you hurt my baby!”
April, oblivious to her mother’s pleading on her behalf, grabbed the wires dangling from her body and yanked them out, tearing her pink shirt and her own flesh. Black blood pooled underneath her shirt. She let out a wild howl and rushed the line of police.
This time, they opened fire. Bullets ripped at her neck and shoulders as the officers attempted a head shot. Being little and light, the shots knocked her backwards. April stumbled, shrieking and waving her arms, as if she could claw the bullets away.
With a sudden burst of explosive energy, April dashed sideways to the end of the pier. The officers ceased their fire as she passed in front of the haunted house operator, who cringed, fearful of April and being shot.
April darted between the haunted house and the Caterpillar Coaster. She slipped through the large gap between the horizontal rails of the wooden fence at the pier’s edge. The officers opened fire on her. Blood spurt out of the side of her head, and she took a header into the ocean below.
Marney dropped to her knees, crying out in hysteria, “My baby! My baby!”
There were screams and cries from the crowd behind the barrier. Holbrook tried to take a step forward, but Becky held him back with a hand. When he looked at her, she had her gun trained on his head.
Another officer approached, tentative. “Becky, what are you doing?”
“He’s had contact with the subject,” she said, never looking away from Holbrook.
“That’s the chief,” another officer said, incredulous.
“No, she’s right,” said Holbrook. “I’ve had contact with bodily fluids. I have to be taken into custody and subject to Protocol Z.”
“Chief, were you bitten?” asked Becky.
“No, thanks to you.”
“Scratched?”
“I don’t think so. But I’ll submit to a full examination.”
Becky turned to one of the officers. “See where that little girl went. I’ve got this.” The officer ran to the edge of the pier to investigate. Becky turned to Holbrook and swallowed hard. These next words were difficult to say. “Chief, I need you to turn around, get down on your knees, cross your feet, and put your hands behind your head. Lace your fingers.”
Chief Holbrook nodded. He knew she was doing her job, and doing her job meant following Protocol Z to the letter. He was no exception.
Holbrook turned around and knelt down on the boardwalk, his back still aching. He got down on both knees and crossed his legs. He placed his hands behind his head and laced his fingers.
“Cover him,” he heard Becky say to the other officer. There was a pause while she waited for him to draw and train his weapon, and Holbrook felt her hand grab his right wrist. Her grip was firm but not rough. She slapped a cuff on his wrist, brought his right hand and then his left behind his back, and cuffed his left wrist.
She helped him to his feet. He groaned as his body ached. She turned him back around. “I’m sorry, Chief.”
He winked at her. “Don’t be. Inform Deputy Chief Olson of the situation. Then call my wife.”
“I’m going to be the one who supervises your Protocol Z. I’m a lieutenant, so I meet the minimum rank.”
“That’s up to Olson. Notify the DOH, tell them I’m on my way to quarantine.”
Becky nodded. “I’ll meet you there after I speak to Lena.”
“Tell her I love her.”
The officer who checked the edge of the pier came running back, panting.
“The little girl’s gone.”
*
“They shot her!”
“The police shot the little girl!”
“Did you see the blood all over her face and shirt?”
“Did you hear the screams?”
“She fell off the pier!”
The crowd of spectators behind him, Mike Brunello watched in horror as he saw Officer Becky cuff Chief Holbrook. An officer approached with a yoke, like a dog catcher would use. The officer lowered the yoke over Holbrook’s head and pulled, decreasing the slack. Holbrook was then escorted off to the right as two other officers followed, guns drawn and trained on their chief.
Jesus, thought Mike. Chief Holbrook must’ve been bit. The chief’s been bit! It couldn’t be true. Mike willed it not to be true. If the dead were returning, the town would need Holbrook.
Nancy shoved her way through the crowd and through the police barrier. They parted, letting her through. “What in the hell is going on here? Why did the cops shut down the pier?”
She saw Mike’s stunned expression, his face drained of all color. “Jesus Christ, Mike. Are you all right?”
Mike turned to look at her. Behind her, he saw people with their cell phones out, capturing videos of what had happened. “Nancy, it was the little girl.”
“She…she was one of them?” asked Nancy.
“I-I don’t understand. It’s been two years.”
Nancy put her hands on her hips. “We have to talk to the chief. He’ll know what’s going on.”
Mike looked away, wearing a pained expression. “They took him away, cuffed and yoked like a stray dog.”
“What in God’s name are you babbling about?”
Mike looked her in the eye. “He went into the spook house to get her. I think the chief’s been bit, Nancy.”
Nancy’s eyes went wide. She prided herself on not being easily surprised. This bit of news, however, took her off guard. “The chief? Goodness gracious, not the chief.”
Mike pulled her in close and embraced her. “It’s starting all over again,” he whispered in her ear. “The dead have returned to Smuggler’s Bay.”
The Creeping Dead: Book 2 Page 8