The Darkest Days (Death & Decay Book 0.5) (2 page)

The roads were unusually crowded. A number of
times, Wyatt found himself inching up the sidewalk or through the
lanes of opposing traffic. The radio had been oddly silent since
the foreboding words of the dispatcher.

At the intersection of Weiss Road and Route N,
Wyatt once again thought of Officer Grey. The accident scene was
only a short detour away. But the dispatcher’s words rang clearly
through his mind.

As he crossed the intersection, a flash of blue
caught his eye. Just a short distance down Weiss Road, a figure
sprinted from the road, across some grass and towards the backyards
of a subdivision. Another figure trailed behind the first. Wyatt
hit the brakes and, after a quick check in the rearview mirror,
slammed the cruiser into reverse.

“Dispatch this is four three one. I have eyes on
a disturbance. I want to investigate further. Please advise.”

“Four three one, return to the station. What is
the ETA on your return?”

Wyatt clenched his teeth as he continued to
stare at where the figures had disappeared. “Two minutes or
less.”

“Make it less.” Wyatt shook himself as he jammed
the cruiser back into drive and continued to the station.

As he pulled off Route N, he could already see
why they had been recalled to the station. Cars lined the narrow
street that led to the station. People were out of their vehicles
and crowded around the small, two-story brick building. Through the
open car windows, he could hear shouting.

“Wyatt!” Jamie shoved his way through the
crowd.

“Lieutenant!” Wyatt jumped out of his cruiser
and met the other man at the back of the crowd. The lieutenant’s
navy-blue uniform and dark, close-cropped hair hid his dishevelment
until Wyatt stood directly in front of him. Bright red spots dotted
the lieutenant’s face. It wasn’t until Wyatt looked over the
lieutenant that he realized that the man’s hands were also smeared
with blood.

“This way! We need to get organized and
fast.”

“What happened to you?” Wyatt stopped the man
before he could turn toward the station. As Wyatt’s eyes passed
over the crowd, he noticed a number of other people were bloodied.
They weren’t fighting each other, though; they were frightened. He
could see it in their wide-eyed expressions. The way their mouths
drew into tight, thin lines. It was the same expression he saw
mirrored in the lieutenant’s face.

“I don’t…” He paused a minute and looked at the
ground, “I don’t know exactly. But something is wrong with people.
Not these people.” He glanced over his shoulder at the crowd. “At
least not yet.”

“What do you mean not yet?”

“People are acting crazy. When I got to the
scene, there were dozens of them.”

“Dozens of what?” The lieutenant wasn’t making
any sense.

“When I arrived at the accident there were
dozens of people. They were all”—his hands danced around
frantically as he tried to find the right word—“deranged! I tried
to help Grey.” The lieutenant grabbed Wyatt’s lapels. “She ran at
me screaming like a maniac. I thought she was scared. I tried to
calm her down. Then she jumped on me! She was screaming. She…She
tried to fucking bite me! The others started rushing in. I had no
choice.” Tears trailed down his cheeks. “I had to shoot her.”

The words rocked Wyatt as he looked upon his
usually chipper lieutenant.

He had admitted to shooting a fellow officer.
“Alright, let’s get you inside the station. We’ll deal with this
crowd and we’ll figure out what’s happening?”

“You don’t understand!” His words became
fervent. “She didn’t die! I shot her in the neck and it didn’t even
faze her! She kept screaming and clawing like nothing was
wrong.”

It wasn’t possible.

A person could potentially survive getting shot
in the neck, but they certainly wouldn’t continue on like nothing
was wrong. “Come on, Lieutenant. Let’s go to the station. We’ll get
this figured out.”

He propelled the man around the outskirts of the
crowd towards the front of the building. “Make a hole!” His voice
boomed above the ruckus. Instinctively, people moved aside as he
quickly pushed the lieutenant forward before the crowd could close
around them.

The chief stood in front of the door as he tried
desperately to keep the crowd under control. He was flanked by
Andrew Lockhart and Trevor Morrison. Both officers had been off
duty for the day. The situation must truly be desperate. They
parted to allow the lieutenant through.

“Please, everyone needs to calm down. We can
only move so quickly. It is important that everyone remain calm so
we can keep things moving in an orderly fashion.” The chief’s voice
resounded over the crowd through a megaphone. The crowd responded
with a roar of calls as a few more were led inside.

Wyatt fell in line with his comrades. “What’s
going on?” His voice was low as he addressed Andrew. “The
lieutenant wasn’t making much sense.” He rubbed his face wearily as
he looked out over the crowd. “What I could make sense of…” He let
the sentence trail off as the words roiled around his head.

As a young woman approached the doors, Trevor
instructed her to raise her arms out and spread her legs. Though
the terrified fifteen-year-old hardly seemed like a threat, Trevor
patted her down. As he did so, he quietly asked questions that
Wyatt couldn’t overhear. The girl mumbled back yes or no, and
eventually Trevor motioned her to the waiting arms of her mother
just inside the station doors.

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know. I was
having a nice relaxing day off when this shit started. I don’t know
what’s going on, but it sure as hell can’t be good.”

Day 1
6:37 pm

The sun had drifted down below the buildings to
leave the crowd in shadow. As the minutes turned into hours, the
crowd had become more agitated. The officers moved amongst the
ever-growing crowd with bottles of water and small bags of trail
mix that were kept at the station.

As the officers walked through the crowd, they
offered the small treats to any who would take them. They promised
that they were moving as quickly as they could. Many of the folks
accepted the small offering and information with gracious smiles.
Others returned the hospitality with glares or sneers.

Wyatt had heard whispers. Talk of loved ones who
had suddenly started acting erratic and aggressive. Fighting in the
streets. People being chased through their neighborhoods by gangs.
It was hard to tell how much were firsthand accounts and how much
was repeated chatter. Even more difficult was deciding how much of
what was said was fact and how much was exaggeration.

“Please.” A woman grabbed Wyatt’s arm as he
turned to move to the next part of the crowd. “What’s happening?”
Two children clung closely to her. The older child was a gangly,
fair-haired boy who looked to be barely into his teens. A sloppy
handprint stood out against his white shirt. A wide-eyed
three-year-old with matching golden blonde curls nestled against
his chest. The little girl clutched a small, lavender unicorn
tightly in her chubby fingers. “Our neighbor, he…he…”

Wyatt put a hand on the woman’s shoulder as she
burst into tears. “I don’t know. I’ve heard all kinds of things,
but I couldn’t tell you how much of it is truth and how much is
rumor. Don’t worry.” He smiled and gave her shoulder a soft
squeeze. “You’re safe here. We’ll get this sorted out.” The woman
nodded as she pulled her children a bit closer and tried to collect
herself. With that, he moved on and distributed more snacks to the
endless sea of hungry mouths.

An ear-piercing shriek cut through the air. The
box of snacks fell to the ground as Wyatt’s hand flew to his gun.
An unnatural hush fell of the large crowd for the briefest second
before a chorus of shrieks joined the first. Suddenly, the mob
erupted into a turbulent sea of screams as people rushed towards
the police station all at once.

Wyatt’s heart galloped as he maneuvered his way
through the crowd towards the cries. He could still hear the
shrieks over the screams and the thunderous sound of feet from the
crowd around him. Along either side, he could see other officers as
they fought their way in the same direction.

As the mass of people began to thin out, Wyatt’s
eyes fell upon a potential source of the hysteria. A woman lay in a
disheveled heap on the ground, her face obscured by her long, dark
hair. A man, his back to Wyatt, knelt over her and moved ever so
slightly as his hands roved across her torso. A pool of blood
pouring from a large gash in the woman’s neck gathered beneath
them.

As he approached, Wyatt slowed almost
imperceptibly to give himself an extra second to assess the
situation. Was this man a Good Samaritan trying to help the woman?
Was he her assailant? The man never turned around. Never called for
help.

The gap between them closed quickly, and Wyatt
had to make a decision. He held his weapon at the ready so he only
had to raise it a hair to fire. Instead of directly approaching the
man, Wyatt took a slight sidestep in an attempt to see what the man
was doing.

Wyatt could only stand with his gun pointed at
the man when he finally got a glimpse of what was happening. His
training had not prepared him for what his eyes were seeing. It was
unlike anything he had ever seen. Like nothing he had ever wanted
to see.

The woman’s stomach had been ripped open and her
entrails had fallen haphazardly from their place. The man lifted a
giant fistful of the shiny, ropey flesh from the hole on the
woman’s abdomen. Wyatt stared as he tried to understand why the man
held the woman’s innards in his hands.

As the man brought the viscera to his lips,
Wyatt found his voice once again.

“Stop right there and put your hands where I can
see them!” He was glad that his voice came out clear and forceful
and not as incoherent babble. The man whipped around and Wyatt took
a fearful step back as his eyes fell upon the man’s face.

What…What is this?
He once again
struggled to process sights that should not have been seen outside
of a movie.

Blood was smeared across the man’s lips. It ran
down what was left his face. The right half of his face had been
gnawed off from his scalp to jaw bone. This left him with an
unnerving, perpetual smile created by teeth that were visible
through holes in exposed muscles. The man opened his mouth wide and
emitted the same guttural shriek that Wyatt had been following.

“I said put your hands up!” This time his voice
wavered as he leveled his weapon at the man. The words fell on deaf
ears as the man leapt up and charged towards him. Two loud cracks
of the Glock rang through his ears as he fired, each shot hitting
the man in the chest. The man stumbled and his charge was halted.
The shots were just shy of centered. If they hadn’t hit the man’s
heart, they had surely punctured his lung.

But he never fell.

Instead, he shrieked again and continued to
charge. This time, as panic flooded through him, Wyatt’s shot went
wild and entirely missed the man. The gap between them closed and
the man slammed into him at full speed. His fingers dug painfully
into Wyatt’s shoulders and they both tumbled to the ground.

The man’s teeth gnashed frantically just inches
from Wyatt’s face as he struggled to keep the man at bay. With all
the effort he could muster, Wyatt brought his weapon up underneath
the man’s bloodied chin and pulled the trigger. Blood and brain
matter erupted like a fountain out of the back of the man’s head
and he suddenly slumped forward. Wyatt’s breath raggedly wheezed in
and out as he tried desperately to catch his breath.

Movement at the edge of his vision caught his
attention. As he struggled to move the man’s weight off of him, he
craned his head around to get a better look. On the ground, the
woman’s arm cast about as if she were searching for something.

She’s alive?
he thought wildly.
How
could anyone survive that wound?

Suddenly, the woman pushed herself up and let
loose a horrible, grating scream. The sound was all the incentive
he needed. Wyatt was able to shove the man off of himself. The
movement drew the woman’s attention and her lips curled back into
an animalistic snarl.

This time his muscles seemed to react without
the command of his brain. He swung the gun around and fired in one
smooth motion. The woman’s head snapped back and she collapsed to
the ground in a motionless heap.

“Wyatt!”

The call was distant and barely audible over the
blood rushing through his ears.

“Wyatt!”

Trevor’s worry-creased face came into his view.
His caramel-colored face was flecked with red. His short, combed,
raven-black hair had already become tussled. All the sounds that
had faded away in the moments of action abruptly flooded back like
a tidal wave of chaos. Screams from the panicked people. The harsh
howls. Gunshots. Dozens of battles raged around them as the people
were forced to fight for their lives.

“Come on!” Trevor yanked Wyatt up roughly.
Though Trevor was a few inches shorter than Wyatt, his frame
carried more muscle and he had no trouble pulling Wyatt up.

He stumbled to his feet and leveled his gun as
he searched for a target in the dying light. But it wasn’t that
easy. All the skirmishes looked the same. All the combatants looked
the same. It was nearly impossible to determine who was an attacker
and who was a victim.

No sooner had he taken in the scene than people
began to rush at him. Trevor was the first to fire his weapon at
the attackers. His first shot hit the shoulder of a woman with an
arm that ended in a ragged stump at the elbow. The second shot
struck the abdomen of a snarling man who limped as he dragged the
mangled remains of his right leg.