The girl wiped an arm across her nose and nodded her head. The mother passed her onto the backseat. She put on her seatbelt. Next to the little girl was her older sister. She wore a dour expression and stared ahead.
At first, Stevens thought she was staring at him, but when he smiled and wiggled his fingers, her eyes refocused. She raised them to him but didn’t smile. Her eyes dropped back to whatever she was looking at before.
Three sad, glum faces. One smiling.
“We’ve been told to install a temporary roadblock,” Stevens said. “They never tell us the reason, of course. So, we’re tasked with checking each vehicle as it comes to us.”
“I understand,” the father said, that smile still affixed in place.
After a while, an officer got used to picking up on certain things. Call it a sixth sense, call it instinct, call it goddamn spidey sense if you must, but it was there now, tingling at the back of his mind.
It was the slightly pinched look on the mother’s face, the little girl in the back, bottom lip quivering. That wasn’t the expression of a girl in the throes of carsickness. It was the expression of a girl rigid with terror.
And there was something with the father too. Something wrong, like a superimposed face on a doctored photo.
“May I have your license, please, sir?” Stevens said.
“Of course.”
As the man turned away, Stevens unclipped his pistol holster and kept his hand above it. Rosenstein would have seen the action and done the same.
Stevens watched the man carefully. He put his hand in his pocket and began rooting around for his license. Stevens paid close attention to his other hand. If he was going to grab a weapon, he would do it with that hand.
“Ah, here it is,” the father said.
The moment of truth. If he raised his right hand first, he might have a weapon. Then it would be down to Stevens’ reaction speed. If the man came up with his left, Stevens would need to keep a close eye on that other hand.
The man smiled as he drew his left hand out of his pocket and handed over his driving license. The right hand returned to the steering wheel.
Stevens relaxed.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the card. “Excuse me one moment while I run it through the system.”
“By all means. Would you mind if I get out of the car and stretch my legs? It’s been a long drive.”
“I’d prefer you to stay in the vehicle right now, sir.”
That was strange, too. In all his years as a police officer, not once had he met someone who willingly offered to get out of the car. They always sighed or rolled their eyes, never happy with wasting time.
A slight pause before that phony smile reimposed itself on the man’s face.
“You’ll be continuing on your journey again in no time,” Stevens said with a smile. See? I have a crocodile smile too.
He turned and approached Rosenstein, who kept on eye on the car, covering his partner. His hand came up off his hip holding his pistol. He hadn’t raised it where the family could see.
“What have we got?” Rosenstein said.
“Family traveling through. But there was something. . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m imagining it. I need to run a check.”
“We’ve got movement.”
Stevens turned, surprised to see the father stepping from his vehicle. He had no visible weapons in his hands.
“I asked you to stay in the car, sir,” Stevens said. “Please get back in your vehicle and wait.”
One hand rested on his holstered weapon.
“I don’t get it,” the father said. “What gave me away? It was the crying brat, wasn’t it?”
Stevens withdrew his pistol and aimed at the man.
“Get down on the ground! Now!” he said.
Rosenstein covered him.
The father lazily raised his hands.
“There’s no need for this, officer,” he said. “I’m not breaking the law.”
“I said, get down on the ground!” Stevens bellowed. “Now!”
The father wasn’t perturbed by the officer’s shout. It usually unnerved innocent people. Stevens called over his shoulder to his partner.
“Call HQ, tell them the situation,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” the father said.
He leaned forward and began to run toward Stevens.
“I swear to God, I’ll put a bullet in you if you don’t stop right now!” Stevens shouted.
The father didn’t stop.
“Freeze!” Stevens said. “I said, freeze!”
The man wasn’t slowing. Well, he did warn him. Stevens aimed his pistol low and fired. Two shots hit the man’s legs. The third may have missed.
The man staggered slightly on one leg but did not crumple beneath it the way he should have.
What the—?
The man barrelled forward. He raised his arms to grab Stevens. The officer fired again, this time with shots to the chest.
Stevens felt the man’s blood splatter over him, then his weight as he fell upon him. This guy reeked. Raising kids could be hard work but there was no reason not to take a goddamn bath!
The man opened his jaws and buried them in the thick muscle of Stevens’ shoulder. He pulled the trigger until it emptied, every one of the bullets burying itself in the father’s abdomen.
Stevens only felt the excruciating pain as the man’s teeth released him. The father took another bullet, this time in the heart. He grunted and looked up, blood oozing from his mouth.
Rosenstein opened fire, blowing holes in the man’s arm.
Stevens crumpled to the tarmac. He felt his blood rapidly seeping from his body, turning cold. The father left Stevens’ line of sight.
His partner screamed, cut short by a hideous rasping sound, and then the thud of a body hitting the road. It was the last thing Stevens’ senses picked up before the lights went out and the world turned black.
Stevens had been due to take some time off, and now he was guaranteed it. It had started a bit late but it had the bonus of never coming to an end.
26.
AFTER MICHAEL had disposed of the first officer, he descended on the second. He got in a couple of good body shots before Michael seized him by the neck, knocked the pistol out of his hand, and threw him to the tarmac.
“Did you radio in?” Michael said.
The officer shuffled back on his hands.
“Okay, let’s try that again,” Michael said, stamping on the man’s ankle.
The man screamed in agony.
“I said, did you radio in what was happening here?” he said.
The officer shook his head. “No. No, not yet.”
“You’re not lying to me, are you?”
The man shook his head fretfully.
Michael knelt beside the man. The man cowered back.
“I hope not,” Michael said. “I don’t want to have to hunt your friends and family down one by one and tear them to pieces as I did to your partner here.”
The officer managed to pull his eyes from Michael and glance at his partner’s unmoving body.
“Last time,” Michael said. “Did you radio in about what transpired here?”
“No,” the man said.
“Okay.”
After seeing what Michael was capable of, of taking so many bullets to the body and suffering no ill effects, the officer ought to know how dangerous an enemy he was. Even if the threat Michael had made wasn’t one he was willing to follow through on.
“I didn’t want it to come to an end like this,” Michael said, scooping up the pistol. “You’ll be thankful I’m choosing to let you off lightly.”
He put a bullet in the middle of the man’s head. He checked the man for extra ammo and reloaded the pistol. He whistled as he did so.
Now to take care of the family.
He’d put them down, then drag the police bodies into their patrol car. Then he’d clean up the puddle of blood as best he coul
d, and be on his way.
He heard a whirring sound. He spun around.
The SUV reversed, back down the road. The mother had leaped into the driving seat and was taking her kids back to town. She had more balls than he’d thought.
He took aim and was about to fire when he realized he needed it to be in good condition, otherwise, it would arouse suspicion. He cursed and took off at a run toward the car.
The car swerved slightly one way, and then the other. The driver was panicking, seeing him sprint down the road toward them. She spun the wheel around and took the car off-road.
It was now or never. She was going to put the car into Drive and take off in the opposite direction. Once she got going, there would be no catching up. Michael extended his arms and legs as far as they would go, lengthening his stride.
The car paused as the driver shoved the car into Drive. The wheels spun as she slammed her foot on the gas. The wheel caught, and the car leaped forward, crossing over to the other side of the road before straightening up.
Michael came to a stop and watched his best method of escape dwindle into the distance.
“Well, that’s just frickin’ great!” Michael said, stamping his feet.
He’d successfully prevented the police from spreading word of his conduct, but now he’d failed to prevent his hostage from doing the same thing!
She’d get back to town and tell everyone what’d transpired. The military would stop him eventually. Especially out here. There were few alternative roads he might take.
And then he realized the worst of it.
His orbs. His happy sack of glowing orbs was in the car’s trunk!
Thankfully, he’d planned ahead. He felt the few bulging orbs he’d crammed in his pockets. Though not ideal, he still had some on him.
Michael jogged back to the roadblock. He was about to climb in the car when he heard a dragging sound. At a loss for what was causing it, he turned around. The first officer was, incredibly, still alive. He dragged himself along the road on his elbows.
“Let. . . me go,” the officer said. “Please. It’s supposed. . . to be my day off. Please. Let me go.”
Michael sighed and approached the man. He crouched down.
“You’ve got the Walker gene too, huh?” he said. “Will wonders never cease. You, my friend, have won the genetic lottery. On an ordinary day, you could count yourself as amongst the luckiest SOBs to have ever walked the Earth. Unfortunately for you, it’s also the day you met me.”
He put the pistol to the officer’s head and pulled the trigger. The officer would walk the Earth no more.
Michael took one of the orbs out of his pocket and buried a blade in the corpse’s belly. Then he shoved an orb into it and covered it over again with the man’s uniform. He turned to the police cruiser and climbed in.
27.
THIS WAS more like it, Michael thought as he buried the gas pedal. The police cruiser accelerated, forcing him into his seat. Inconspicuous, it was not, but boy did it move. That was fortunate, as there would soon be an entire army on his tail.
The radio was still quiet, with only short blasts from control. Nothing about him on it yet. It meant he still had a little time.
Then the radio buzzed, coming to life. One order issued after another.
And so it begins.
It reported “an aggressive male” having fired shots, that two officers were down. Their vehicle had been stolen and was moving in a northerly direction.
Pointless hiding now, he supposed. He leaned over and flicked the siren and lights on. He chuckled as the other cars on the road slowed and pulled aside to let him pass.
“Subject is approaching a roadblock, over,” the radio said.
Is that so?
Ahead, he made out the glow of fuzzy yellow light on the horizon. If he could reach it, perhaps he could disappear amongst the heaving crowds. Then they’d have no choice but to lock down the entire city as they had with Austin.
“The subject is approaching the barricade now, over,” the radio said.
A fleet of vehicles was parked on either side of the road. Half a dozen civilian cars had pulled off the road and parked some distance away on the dusty verge, out of the sightlines of the police who stood behind their vehicles, guns aimed at the rapidly-approaching car.
They always left a space through the middle big enough for a car to pass through. Why? Because they didn’t want to unnecessarily damage their vehicles, never mind the damage it would do to them personally if Michael were to smash into them.
Someone spoke through a megaphone. To slow down. To pull over.
Nah, I don’t think so.
“This is going to sting,” Michel said.
He aimed his cruiser at the gap and leaned over to one side. Then, the bullets began to fly.
They slammed into the car, poking holes in the windows and bouncing off the reinforced metal shell. Multiple bullets zipped into and through Michael’s body. He wished he had a helmet.
One bullet took him in the elbow, knocking his grip on the steering wheel to one side. He corrected without glancing through the windscreen. He couldn’t know if he’d corrected enough or not.
The gunfire paused as the cruiser whizzed into the gap. One side panel shrieked against the barricade. He did not stop. The reprieve of gunfire only lasted a moment at the officers shifted and retargeted the cruiser, firing on it from behind.
On the radio, Michael heard something about “spikes deployed.” Michael tugged the wheel to one side, taking the car off the road and onto the rough desert landscape.
“Spike deployment failed,” it said. “Continue pursuit.”
That was Michael’s signal to sit up and pull the car back onto the road.
The windscreen window hadn’t been knocked out but it’d been peppered with bullet spray. Entire chunks might have been bitten off by a large monster with crooked teeth. Steam hissed through the puncture wounds in the hood.
He turned the rearview mirror back to its original position and peered into it. The lights of the vehicles flashed as they sped up to catch him. Michael placed a hand on the orbs in his pockets.
A large hole imploded in his side window. He took a blow in the chest, forcing the cruiser to swerve to the opposite side of the road. Michael regained control and pulled the car back again. He glanced through the hole.
A military helicopter hovered overhead. Sitting with his legs hanging over the side was a figure he recognized very well. Michael extended his middle finger.
The fingers on his hand suddenly exploded in an eruption of blood. He heard the sound of the gunshot a split second later. Michael gritted his teeth and hugged his ruined hand close to his chest. It didn’t hurt, but boy was he going to miss those digits.
Glancing ahead through the windscreen, he realized his nightmare had only just begun.
28.
FROM THIS angle, taking out the driver was a difficult task, especially when nothing less than a headshot would do. Tommy hit Michael twice but missed his intended target both times. The guy’s head.
The cruiser was drawing close to the city now. The road ahead had been successfully blocked off. They simply couldn’t allow him to enter Dallas. Not if they didn’t want a twin of Austin.
Tommy spoke into his microphone.
“Team Beta,” he said, “you’re cleared to open fire, over.”
On the very fringes of the city, where the next roadblock had been set up, the military had been issued with rather more powerful weaponry than the pistols and machine guns of the police force.
Tommy heard the repeated thunk noises as the grenade launchers fired, and the streak of flame as the rockets were fired. Their target and primary goal was the same: the cruiser barreling toward them.
Typical procedure for stopping a vehicle? No. But entirely justifiable considering the circumstances.
The rockets came first and targeted the road directly in front of the speeding vehicle. The cruiser swerved left to right to
avoid the potholes that opened up. Not one rocket hit its target.
The first few grenades missed their target too, exploding a dozen yards from the car. Others bounced off, exploding a second too late. A couple detonated right beside the vehicle, jolting it aside.
And still, the car kept coming.
The soldiers dived aside as the car slammed through the barricade. It was immediately followed by a loud screeching noise and a flurry of sparks as two of the car’s wheels rode on the rim, slicing a shallow groove in the open street.
The soldiers shifted position to fire their grenades and rockets at the stricken vehicle, lying broken in the middle of the street. A mortally wounded animal.
“Stand down!” Tommy said into his mouthpiece. “We need him alive!”
There were too many questions that needed answering. Miss one key piece of information and they might doom themselves.
If Michael wanted to continue his journey, he was going to have to emerge from the wreck.
“Sharpshooters, fire at will,” Tommy said. “No headshots.”
The bullets wouldn’t kill him but at least they could slow him down. Tommy had his rifle locked and loaded, too. Ready to open fire.
The city had been cleared for a full city block. The vehicles parked up ahead were the final line of defense. They hadn’t had time to evacuate but they were at least safely off the streets.
The soldiers were halfway to the cruiser now. If Michael didn’t make a move soon, he was doomed.
Finally, we have him, Tommy thought.
Then a figure emerged, bolting from the wreckage in the direction of one of the buildings. He held a bulletproof vest over his head.
Tommy and the other sharpshooters opened fire. They struck the Walker in the foot, ankle, thigh, abdomen, and chest. . . and still, Michael kept on running. Surely there was only so much abuse the body could take?
Michael reached the door and tried the handle. It was locked. He stepped back and opened fire with a shotgun he’d lifted from the cruiser. He wiped away the glass with the butt.
Tommy fired off another round. A large splatter of blood stained the wall. Michael staggered inside.
Death Squad (Book 2): Zombie State Page 9
