The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak (28 page)

Stepping inside the bay of the station his thoug
hts of finding anything of use were quickly shattered when he observed that the entire second floor had collapsed down into the large open garage area and cut off his route to the offices and communication room further into the building. He backed out of the bay and was starting to work his way around the far side of the building after he remembered a service entrance over there that led to the hallway almost directly across from the communications room when he heard the car horn on his cruiser start blaring with a constant wail as Shellie leaned over and pressed against it without letting up. Whirling around back towards the street he saw the source of her concern, rounding the corner and coming on fast towards the cruiser, was a crowd of close to thirty zombies, every passing second that he watched even more were starting to appear from different directions, all of them honing in on the street leading to the fire station. The first ones he spotted had their faces turned towards the sky and he could swear that they looked like bloodhounds following a scent. There had been a moderate wind blowing in that direction ever since he had exited his patrol car and now that he was also aware of how badly he had been sweating he was reasonably sure that the damn things had actually picked up on his body odor and it had attracted them to his presence. Any further thoughts of searching around the fire house were quickly abandoned as he broke into a sprint and raced down the drive to the connecting street directly towards his waiting car. As long as they kept the same pace they were using at that moment he should be able to beat them by a good hundred feet or so to the car, but then he saw one group of about ten or twelve concentrating intently on the patrol car and the blaring horn sounding from under its hood. That group had now focused on the sound of the horn and its telltale implications that a living human being was more than likely responsible and thus a fresh meal may be nearby. They picked up their speed and started racing towards the car while the remaining zombies stayed true to their original stimuli by sniffing at the air and shuffling along following his scent blowing to them on the breeze.

The time for discretion in his approach had now passed, keeping at a full sprint he tucked the rifle tight into his shoulder and started squeezing off rounds in the general direction of the group that had turned towards Shellie in his cruiser. With that
batch of zombies running together in a close pack it was hard for him to miss, but his hits were all body and limb shots, trying to accurately get off a head shot at this distance while running, was just a little beyond his ability. The hits he was making were at least causing them to lose a little of their forward momentum as the shock of the round impacting their bodies turned them briefly to one side or the other, but overall they were still making good progress towards the cruiser and it was going to be a close race. The rifle clicked on an empty magazine surprising him that he had burned through a full thirty rounds in such a short period, he needed to remember that he only had a few spare magazines and blowing through rounds at such a rate was going to leave him dry really quick without having caused any meaningful damage to his targets. He scrambled for another magazine, slammed it into the receiver and released the bolt all in record time, bringing the barrel back into position he slowed his rate of fire and concentrated on the legs of the front three zombies hoping to at least trip one of them to form a brief obstacle for the ones coming up behind it. Forty feet short of the cruiser he almost jumped out his skin as the thunderous blast of a shotgun boomed off to his right side and one of the zombies in the front of the pack suddenly lost its head from the base of its neck up in a spray of liquefied brain, bone and hair that showered those behind him. Kyle reflectively adjusted the aim of his rifle towards the source of the blast and found himself staring down his sights at Shellie as she steadied herself across the hood of his cruiser with his patrol's shotgun tucked comfortable into the crook of her shoulder as she lined up her next shot. The scared little secretary apparently had a few surprises up her sleeve as she coolly fired off a second shot with similar results although this one had the added benefit of taking out two heads for the price of one since her target had been lined perfectly with another zombie right behind him. Her efforts were paying off as she lined up her third shot and knocked took off another head, this time the body fell in the path of the zombies coming along at its heels and send several of them tumbling to the ground. Kyle also saw that the group of zombies who had been following his scent had now spotted him running down the street were coming on at a fast sprint from three angles it would be a close race for him to reach the car several strides before them.

"GET IN!" He yelled with a strangled gasp as he felt his lungs tightening to get more oxygen. The bullet proof vest he wore under his uniform was heavy and also form fitting, meaning that when his chest started heaving in exertion such as while running, it could only expand so far before it met resistance from the vest. Shellie glanced over at him, judging his distance from the car and then racked another round into the chamber of the shotgun. Steadying her aim she blasted another zombie head into glazed jelly all over the creature’s comrades running at its heels. Satisfied with her work she threw the gun into the car ahead of her and dove in after it, scrambling across to the driver’s door and throwing it open just seconds before Kyle reached it and slid quickly into place behind the wheel. He was thankful at that point that he had left the engine running for Shellie so that all he had left to do was drop it into gear and slam his own door shut before hitting the gas and plowing ahead. The cruiser had a metal push guard welded onto the front bumper that had been designed for pushing automobiles, in this case that metal guard served like a plow as he slammed into four zombies at once. Extending two feet from the front of the bumper the push guard allowed him to strike the zombies and knock them down while keeping their falling bodies from grabbing hold of the hood. As it was, they were knocked down to the street and either off to the side or under the cruiser as he discovered once the tires rose up and over first one then three of them at the same time, it caused car to rock back and forth and forced him to ease off the gas before he lost control and swerved into the ditch. Grabbing the wheel tight with both hands he held on and carefully kept them as centered on the road as possible until they had cleared the last of that first wave of zombies. Dodging and weaving like a drunk driver and throwing Shellie all over the inside of the car in the process he worked on keeping only the very front outside edges of the steel reinforced bumper involved in striking down zombies that he was unable to avoid to push them off to the sides instead of under the accelerating cruiser. It took almost half the block before there finally reached a point where the street was clear enough of zombies that Kyle could resume normal driving, by then both of them were battered and bruised from tossing about inside the car and hitting doors and the center computer console. Looking back in the rear view mirror Kyle saw that many of the zombies had turned after them and were pounding hard down the street in pursuit, he knew they would be able to easily outdistance them but their willingness to continue the chase was something to remember, if they came upon a blocked road or other obstruction causing them to turn around, they could be in trouble. For now he decided to just keep navigating the smaller back roads through the outer lying commercial and residential districts while he thought of just where they would go next.

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Miranda was gasping for air by the time she finally reached the front corner of Mr. And Mrs. Carpenter's home. The combination of running when she hadn't exercised in years along with the building smoke clogging up the air had made the escape from her own building seem like miles instead of just over a hundred or so yards. Her right calf had started to cramp up during the last stretch between the far edge of the parking lot and the corner of the house and she had more or less been forced to limp the remaining distance. She wanted to stop at that point to catch her breath and use the cover of the house to make sure the surrounding area was clear before she made the last several feet to the front door. Raising her arms high above her head she tried to use an old
runner’s trick to open up her lungs to full capacity and suck in more of the cleaner air further away from her burning building. She pushed her back against the side of the house and caught sight of how much further the flames had spread during her run. She couldn't see any of the windows on the back of her apartment from the angle she was at but she was certain that the fire had now reached the far end of the building which meant that her apartment must be fully ablaze at this point. It tugged at her heart strings to see that row of buildings going up in smoke, not so much for her own sake since she had not really had much time to form any kind of attachment to the place, but she thought of the Carpenters and all the obvious love and care they seemed to sink into the place and what a loss it was going to be for them to see a good portion of it razed to ashes.

Turning away from the fire
, she eased back to the edge of the house and was just working her way around the corner when her eyes fell on someone hunched over on their hands and knees just past the steps leading to the front door. The woman had her back to Miranda and it looked as though she was rummaging through something on the ground just out of her sight. As she tentatively moved further from the edge of the house and slowly approached the front steps she realized it was Mrs. Carpenter and a flood of relief coursed through her body. She picked up her pace and was just about to call out to the older woman when the bare foot and bottom half of a man’s leg came into sight sticking out from underneath the woman. Miranda stifled the scream that was building in her throat and stopped dead in her tracks. Mrs. Carpenter must have sensed something as she turned her head sharply to the right and studied the steps and porch in front of the front door for a moment but didn't look far enough to the side to spot Miranda standing like a statue on the edge of her front lawn. Before she turned her attention back to what she had been doing, Miranda had a clear look at the side of the woman’s blood spattered face and she had no doubt exactly what the source of that blood was. The naked leg she saw peeking out from under Mrs. Carpenter must have been from her husband and Miranda had wandered up just in time to witness what had only a day earlier been a sweet and kindly older woman now feasting on the remains of her own husband. Taking tentative and cautious steps backward she retraced her steps until she reached her hiding spot on the edge of the house. Once she was out of sight of the grisly scene she felt her knees starting to get weak as the fear began to once again take hold of her. She clenched her eyes hard and concentrated on keeping herself steady on her feet, losing it here would more than likely leave her open to becoming Mrs. Carpenter's second course. She let the fear take hold of her for only a minute before finally pushing it back deep inside her and summoning up the smallest ounce of courage to allow herself to start thinking clearly again. Her plan had been to reach the Carpenter's for help, from that point she had not thought any further ahead and she certainly had not considered an alternative plan if she was to find Mr. Carpenter already dead and his wife dining on the remains like a starved vulture.

Miranda studied her surroundings looking for something that may help her decide what her next move should be, running back further into the complex was out of the question. The fire was still burning unchecked and the smoke in that direction had become so thick that she would more than likely run into the group of crazies she had first spotted outside her apartment window. That left her with moving off to her left, from where she was now standing there was a service road and several large dumpsters as well as a utility shed only a few yards away. Beyond the service road she could just see one corner of a gas station on the opposite side of the boulevard that passed by her housing complex. She remembered passing the gas station in the cab on her way back from shopping. When she saw it earlier it looked like it was a place that stayed fairly busy with its good location at a busy intersection. The building consisted of a convenience store as well as a small diner and had a place for trucks to park along one side. She saw several cars along what should be a bustling street clogged with morning commuter traffic, but none of them were moving and it looked as though their drivers had just stopped in the middle of the street and abandoned their cars in place. She wasn't sure what to make of the traffic jam but seeing no one around either on the street or the gas station she decided to try her luck inside the little store and hope that either someone there could help her or she could find a phone that would get her in touch with the authorities. 

Taking several deep breaths she worked up the courage to start herself moving again and made a dash across the service road to a point just behind the dumpsters where she could scan either way up and down the street. Turning to the east she saw another column of dark billowing smoke rising high into sky behind a strip mall at the next intersection. That fire looked as though it was much bigger than the one at her own apartment building, she wasn't sure what types of structures might have been over there but with the general layout of the area with stores bordering the street and houses and apartments back a little further she thought that even more homes were going up in flames. On the far end of the long strip mall in that direction she could see a crowd of people, maybe close to thirty or more all seemingly milling about aimlessly between the stores and cars parked in the street directly in front of them. They were close to two full blocks away from her and she couldn't make out much in terms of details but she remembered the aimless manner in which the small crowd of crazies in front of her own apartment had been walking through the parking lot before they set their sights on her neighbor and the injured man she had helped escape her burning building. Miranda had little doubt that they were all in the same homicidal mind sight as the others in front of her apartment as well as poor Mrs. Carpenter. With the building smoke from the fire at her own apartment building and the one just past the strip mall the entire street was cloaked in a low lying fog that she felt confident would be enough to hide her as she made the dash across to the gas station. She did consider the fact that the smoke also prevented her from seeing inside the gas station through the front windows and that she could very well be running into a store full of more of the same deranged people. She had decided that the risk was worth taking given the alternative of remaining outside in the open where it was just a matter of time before one of them spotted her. Using a concrete barrier behind the dumpsters as a step, she hoisted herself up to peer over the rim of the metal container in search of anything she could use as a makeshift weapon just in case she did happen to come face to face with one of them. The first two dumpsters were full of general household waste, nothing that she could conceivably make use of and from the smell inside them even the threat of being eaten alive was not going to get her to dive down into the bowels of either trash bin. From her perch over the top of the dumpsters she could see that the third one in line contained discarded construction supplies and that seemed like her best candidate for a potential weapon. Working her way carefully down the rim of the containers she found what she was looking for propped up against the upper lip of the dumpster, a three foot long piece of solid metal rebar. Pulling the rusted metal bar from the trash she was pleased to note that one end of it had been cut rather crooked leaving behind a jagged piece of metal with a nice pointed tip. It would work well either to bash some skulls or as a stabbing weapon, giving her some flexibility in responding if she was attacked or cornered.