Zombies! (Episode 5): Sinners and Saints (7 page)

“Hold your fire,” Smith barked, worried that any unnecessary gunfire would bring a horde of the things down on them. “Keep that light on it.”

He set up four men to guard the stairs, including Spinelli, who was in charge of squad four. The rest of the men formed a semicircular skirmish line. Their lights found four more solitary zombies, just swaying in the middle of the room. On the left and right, they caught sight of the walls. Behind them, too, was a broad wall fashioned out of hard clay. There were dark corneres where the wall met the walls of the alcove, but they were clear. In front, though, was just darkness, no indication of an ending or a way out.

“Hong, Martin, Willer, and Ruiz, take aim and fire.”

Four shots rang out and the four zombies fell to the ground. The rest of the men held still while the echoes of the shots faded. Then they waited in silence. Smith thought hard about their next move. He needed to complete a sweep of the area, but was worried about branching tunnels. For now, at least, there was just one way to go. Taking up a position in the center of the line, he pressed forward at a slow pace. The men followed directly behind him, holding their positions along the line. Ironically enough, they had practiced this formation just two days before should they be overrun in a wide open space like a park or a city avenue. He didn't suppose Culph and Heron had considered they would be fighting in a medieval labyrinth. Smith half expected the Balrog to come crashing out of the darkness.

“I've got one,” someone called on the end.

Smith called a halt and ordered him to take it out. Once again there was a gunshot and then some waiting. Then they moved forward again. This process was repeated two more times, only a few paces apart. Finally, in front of them, the mouth of a passage appeared. It was directly ahead of Smith's position and appeared empty. To the left and right, they had not lost sight of the walls so he could only assume that the large chamber was clear of the undead.

He couldn't take twelve men into this passage. It wasn't as narrow as the one in the basement above, but they would get bunched up if they all crowded inside. In the end he chose Willer, Hong, Andreyev, and Ruiz. Willer and Hong flanked Smith as he moved forward while Andreyev and Ruiz kept three paces back, providing cover and light. Together, they moved slowly forward, their lights much more effective in the enclosed space. Up ahead the tunnel bent to the left. A lone figure crouched in the corner, her arms up above her head. Even when the light hit her, she did not look up. There were no visible wounds and she trembled in the cold.

“Miss?” Smith said, still several paces away. “My name is Gregory Smith and I'm a police officer. Can you understand me?”

Next to him, Hong's gun rattled a bit. Smith gave him a look, putting a hand on the barrel to steady it.

“There's nothing alive down here, Smith,” he whispered.

“Let's make sure of that, eh?” Smith stepped forward. “Miss, please look at me. We need to be sure that you understand.”

A small sound came from her. It didn't sound like their moaning, more like a sob. Slowly, she began to turn her head. Smith stopped in place, his own rifle shaking ever so slightly in his hands. When she turned her face fully toward them, they could see a pretty girl with black lines of mascara running down her cheeks. She brought one arm up to shield her eyes against the light.

“She's alive?” Ruiz blurted.

“Miss, I need you to say something, please,” Smith said.

She looked from one to the other, unable to see anything past the lights. “Are you really cops?”

Exhaling, Smith nodded and approached. “We really are. Are you wounded?”

“You mean bitten?”

“I do. I mean bitten.”

She shook her head. “No. I ran down here. It was so dark and I was so scared, but I found this corner and just...waited.”

“You're very lucky,” Smith said.

“Did you find Mary?”

Smith looked back at his three men as if they might know what she was talking about. Of course they didn't.

“She acted fast, grabbing up all of the kids and rushing into the classroom,” the girl explained. “I tried to get in but she didn't see me. She slammed the door shut and I could hear them throwing stuff against it. And the zombies...there were so many.”

Culph had heard children, Smith remembered. “I think we may have found them,” he assured her. “They're trying to get through that door now.”

Quickly she reached out and snatched his arm. “You don't understand. She grabbed all the children, but she was hurt. She was bitten!”

***

With Baches' first attempt, the door bowed in. The handle broke and it was clear that whoever was inside had piled up whatever they could find as a barricade. Encouraged, Baches continued to attack the door with vigor. Culph was amazed at the peace reflected on the big man's face as he hit first with his left shoulder and then with his right. Behind the door, they could hear furniture scraping. The children's cries became louder and more pronounced.

Suddenly, a face appeared at the door. He was maybe twelve years old, buzz cut across his head, wide eyes. When he saw the police uniforms, he reached through the crack and tried to wriggle out of the room.

“Get out of the way,” Culph yelled.

“Help us!” the boy cried back. “She's almost done with Jessica.”

Culph and Baches barely spared a glance for each other. Then they threw the sum total of their weight against the door and pushed, feet wedged up against the opposite wall. The door moved and moved again. There was a table between the boy and the door and he scrambled underneath it, getting through as soon as there was room. All at once there came a second child. And then a third. They scrambled out of the room one after the other, crying and screaming. Then they stopped coming and there was a flurry of sound and motion within.

“What the hell...” Culph began when a hand shot out and grabbed Baches by his leg. The skin on the hand was grey and stretched. It was an adult hand, probably a woman's. But it wasn't alive. Baches cursed and kicked at the wall until the thing let go.

Culph unslung his rifle but the hand disappeared back inside. Baches, visibly shaken, waited twenty seconds before going back to work, Rollins now helping. In the intervening moments between the time that Baches hit the door and Rollins hit the door, Culph stabbed the butt of his rifle inside to try and weaken the barrier. The screams of the children still in the room hit a crescendo and the men doubled their efforts.

Finally something gave and the door opened about eighteen inches. Shoving Baches aside, Culph threw everything he had against it, pushed it another three inches, and tumbled inside. He caught sight of the dead woman right away. She had long black hair which flew about her face wildly, hiding her eyes and damping her blood soaked cheeks and lips. Her right arm was torn to bits. It was so bad that Culph could see clear through to the bone. She'd been young, maybe twenty five, although it was hard to tell when they were dead. Her left hand was clamped around the leg of an eight year old boy. He scrabbled on the floor, trying to get away but it was already too late. She'd taken several bites out of him.

Culph didn't hesitate. As Baches and Rollins filed in behind him, pushing aside the last of the blockade, a series of child sized tables, chairs, and wooden cubbies filled with toys and books and puzzles, he took aim and fired. The first shot took her right arm, clean off. She tumbled backward, letting go of the boy, but her victim was in no state to gain any ground. He just lay on the floor writhing about, probably unaware that he wasn't running at full speed. Culph's second shot hit her in the midsection. At this range, it did an enormous amount of damage. The thing hissed as it flopped about on the floor. With its left arm, it tried to lever itself up, but Culph's third shot took out that arm, as well. Now the zombie woman was rolling about, no better off than her victim. Baches and Rollins stared in shock as Culph marched right up to her and kicked her once in the side and once in the head. Then, shifting the rifle to his left hand, he drew his knife with his right and began to stab relentlessly at the hapless creature. While he was doing this, a child darted out of the corner of the room. There were about six children in the room including the one the zombie woman had been eating, but not including the two that were already eaten. None of the three policemen had noticed anything out of the ordinary about this one, but they would later wonder how they had missed it. The child was dead, a zombie just like the woman. It was a little girl, maybe five years old by her height and weight. The bite marks were on her back and the backs of her legs. In the corner, from where she had come, there was a preschool mat and a blood soaked sheet and blanket. They had tried to make her comfortable while she’d died.

Culph noticed her at the very last moment, and raised the knife to shield himself against the attack. As the little girl launched herself at him, the knife scraped along her cheek. She took no notice. Dropping the rifle, Culph sparred with the thing momentarily, keeping its mouth away from his face and defending against the arms and the legs. In a moment, he had the upper hand. He flipped the little girl over onto her back and pinned her to the ground.

“Shoot it!” he cried to Baches and Rollins. Neither man made a move. “
Shoot it!”

Both men had seen and fought zombies. In the previous weeks, there hadn't been a man on the team who'd been spared the experience. But still, they froze.

“I can't, man,” Baches said. “She's just a kid...”

Culph spit out a string of curses and lifted the girl off the ground. Using all of his adrenaline augmented strength, he tossed her away from himself. She flew three feet and tumbled against the body of the woman, still trying in vain to find her feet. This time, when Culph drew his pistol, he didn't fool around. He fired two shots, one for the head of the woman and the other for the head of the little girl. Then he turned, sparing not a glance for his companions, and took aim at the eight year old boy.

“He's still...” Rollins started but was drowned out by the gunshot. The boy's body jerked once and then his suffering was over.

***

It was much later when Shawn stood in the cold rubbing his hands together and puffing steam out of his mouth and nostrils. The day had come and gone, most of it spent wrestling with whether or not to give Heron a call. As of that morning, when he'd left Marcus, he hadn't committed to going on the hunt, but that had changed. Over the past several weeks, his growing fear of zombies had been disabling him more and more. He hadn't told Marcus and he hadn't told his parents. He was afraid of the subway and often took the bus instead. The idea of being trapped underground when it all went to hell terrified him. So when Lodi had pulled him aside on Thursday and told him about the hunt, he'd given it real thought. If he could face a zombie again, this time knowingly, and defeat it, he might be able to overcome his fear. So really, the question wasn't whether or not he was going to participate in the hunt. The question was whether or not he was going to turn all of his companions over to the cops.

So far he hadn't.

Lodi was a big kid, only sixteen but bigger and meaner than anyone Shawn had ever met. They had gone through middle school together. While Shawn had worked hard to stay out of trouble, Lodi had always found a way
into
trouble. He liked to tempt fate and butt heads with authority. He thought he knew it all when even Shawn understood that Lodi was one of the very dumbest people he would ever meet. And he was stubborn as a mule. Stubborn and stupid make a bad combination.

They were gathered outside the school. Well, they were a block away, standing in front of one of the popular convenience stores. The store was open but they didn't go in, choosing instead to stand out in the cold. There were seven of them. Lodi and Shawn and Brian and Tiffany, Brian's girlfriend. Shawn didn't know the other three and no introductions were made. They looked older and they looked mean. Lodi passed Brian a sour look. It was clear he didn't want to have a girl along but Brian didn't care. Tiffany had been practicing Karate or Judo or some kind of martial arts since she was in the womb. She could kick anyone's ass and had proven it a dozen times over.

“We found a spot where we saw a few zombies,” Lodi told them. “We think there are more, but we ain't sure. The guy's paying three hundred a head and he ain't put no limit so we want to bag as many as possible.”

Lodi had four duffle bags with him. Lord knows how he'd gotten them from his home to the convenience store. They looked full and they looked heavy. He unzippered the first one and started pulling out weapons.
Weapons!
There was a crobar, a wooden baseball bat with the fat end whittled to a point, two aluminum baseball bats, and a pitchfork. He began to hand them out. Tiffany didn't take one and Lodi didn't take one. Shawn wound up with the pointed wooden bat.