by Ivan Turner
***
Cleaning up the church mess had been an all day affair. Heron had sent Culph home right after they'd left Queens. After Baches' description of his behavior, Heron knew that the boy needed to wind down. Culph complained angrily about it but Heron was insistent. He brought to bear all of his old communication skills, the skills he hadn't had on hand since losing Stemmy. He did his best to mollify Culph and was satisfied with the results. Then he went back to the office, began looking at camera footage from that morning, and doled out assignments for the rest of the weekend. In the interim, he sent men out on other calls. He would visit his wounded officers on Sunday.
Finally, at around 8:00pm, he arrived home. On a Saturday night, Alicia was less strict about Mellie's bedtime. His wife and daughter were both up and sitting in their bed. They were watching a movie and eating ice cream out of giant red bowls. As he leaned up against the doorframe, Heron smiled.
"Do we know you?" Alicia asked without taking her eyes from the movie.
"Mommy!" Mellie admonished. "Don't be silly. That's daddy."
They all laughed a bit and Heron was happy to have this sanctuary. Kicking off his shoes, he crawled onto the bed, gave Mellie a quick tickle, and then squeezed Alicia. Turning her head, she gave him a kiss on the cheek and went back to the movie. Okay. She was a little bit perturbed but she still loved him. The worst part about fighting zombies night and day was that he was never sure how his family would receive him every time he came home. He knew that he was changing in ways he did not like but he wasn't sure if Alicia noticed it.
The movie was something Mellie had picked out. Of course. It was computer animated and had penguins and polar bears and one creepy sea horse. They all spoke with British accents. Heron poked fun at the way they spoke and Mellie responded by just poking him. They got into it and some ice cream spilled on the bed. That didn't really matter. Baby wipes clean just about anything. They were all having a good time, finally relaxing as a family when Shawn's text came through.
The entire mood in the room changed over when Heron's phone went off. His chin dropped to his chest and his eyes clouded over. All he wanted was one easy night with his family. Just one. Alicia's initial reaction was annoyance but when she looked at him and saw how despondent he was, she forgot about it.
"Jesus," he said, looking at the phone, showing it to her.
Alicia took it and looked at it. "Don't go alone," she said to him.
He shook his head. "Don't worry."
Before he crawled off the bed, she gave him a kiss on the lips and told him she loved him.
Heron made some phone calls as he drove. His first instinct was to get Culph to assemble a team, but then he thought better of it. Better to trust his earlier instincts and let Culph have the night off. Instead he called Smith. Smith was pretty reliable and could think on his feet. Heron ordered him to assemble two squads and meet him at the construction yard. Shawn's message was urgent, which meant there might be a lot of zombies. With his siren blaring, he pulled up to the site. He was ahead of Smith and trying to figure out whether or not he should go in or wait. He drove a quick perimeter, but there was nothing to be seen inside. Stopping the car in front of the personnel gate, he noticed that it hung slightly open. There was a padlock but it was open and laying on the ground. Smith could be five minutes behind him or fifteen. It had already been too long since Shawn's text and Heron was feeling responsible for the boy's predicament. Despite Alicia's urgings and his own promise, he drew his sidearm and entered the yard.
Moving across the grounds, he checked around the piles of material for any sign of life or undeath. He had no idea where Shawn might be and was reluctant to call out for obvious reasons. There were some tracks in the dust that seemed to lead toward a cluster of buildings nearby. He wasn't excited about having to explore inside those dark structures, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Maybe Smith would show up before he had to make that decision.
As he moved closer and closer, the smell of decay grew in his nostrils. Following his nose, it didn't take him long to discover the scene of the battle. Several dead zombies littered the ground. A few more were bound and gagged, struggling their ways through the dirt. One live and free zombie, a man in denim jeans and a printed tank top, was hunched over a seasoned looking teen and feasting on his belly. Heron raised his gun but then thought better of it. For the moment the zombie was content with its meal. A gunshot might bring more of them.
He surveyed the scene. Near where the zombie was eating lay two back packs. The contents of one of them was spread out along the ground. Heron saw rope and rubber balls, all matching the types used to secure the few bound zombies. A few paces from that was a cell phone, the screen still lit. Walking over, he picked up the phone and looked at the screen. It was Shawn's phone. Heron was wondering why he would leave it when he finally heard the sirens. The zombie looked up from its meal momentarily and then went back to eating. It was making the most sickening noises.
Heron moved to the nearest dead zombie and saw a bullet hole in its head. Someone had been shooting. As far as he knew, Shawn had no experience with guns. So who had been shooting? And where was the gun? There were too many questions. He needed to find Shawn, but knew that wandering the grounds blind would only get him killed. He picked up and pocketed the phone, leaving everything else for the forensics investigators.
The zombie looked up from its meal, seeming to notice the lieutenant for the first time. Heron took aim and waited. It seemed confused between continuing with what it was doing and going after new prey. Ultimately it decided upon the fresh meat. Bringing itself to its full height it took two steps forward before Heron fired his weapon.
Now it was only a matter of time. Desperate, Heron cupped his hands to his mouth. "Shawn!" he called into the night. "Shawn!"
A zombie appeared a few yards away from around the side of the building. Heron called for Shawn again. Another appeared just a little bit further away.
"Why doesn't he answer?" Heron complained to himself.
A third zombie was approaching now and Heron was forced to put down the first one as it was getting too close for comfort. As he fired the shot, he thought about the zombie that had fired its gun at his men and he thought about the real danger. He wanted to go and search for Shawn but he knew that it was suicide. Instead, he started back toward the gate, clearing the buildings and stepping back between the mounds of materials. He was careful as he walked, knowing that zombies could be coming from any direction. They would all be moving toward the sound of his shouts, but would shift if he fired his weapon again. From this point on, he would only shoot something that he couldn't avoid.
He was almost at the gate when a figure darted out from around a pile of gravel. It rushed at Heron and grabbed him by the shoulders. Reacting quickly, he brought up his free elbow and knocked it in the side of the head. Then, spinning gracefully, he detached himself from it and shoved it into the gravel bed. He was a millisecond from firing before he noticed that the figure was sobbing. It was a young girl. Her jacket was ripped and she was shaking all over. There was blood on her face and something wet staining the leg of her pants.
"Let's get her out of here," Heron said, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her forward.
When they arrived at the gate, Smith was deploying his men just inside. An officer took the girl back to the car while Heron went to speak with his squad leader.
"I don't like this layout, lieutenant," Smith said. "My men will be vulnerable no matter how we approach it."
Still desperate to find Shawn, Heron knew he had larger concerns. The yard was obviously infested with zombies and the handful of men on the scene would be overwhelmed. It would be worse than the church that morning. "Pull them out," he ordered reluctantly.
Smith gave the orders and everyone moved outside the gate. Heron shut it and affixed the padlock. Then he went over to where the girl was sitting in a squad car. In hushed tones, the officer told him that her na
me was Tiffany and that she had definitely been bitten. An ambulance from Arthur Conroy was on its way.
Heron thanked the officer and then went to Tiffany. He sat in the front seat, the door open, and leaned over to talk to her, in the back seat. He introduced himself.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“You’ve been bitten. You know that, right?”
A sob escaped her as she nodded.
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to call your parents?”
She didn’t answer.
“Tiffany,” he said kindly, trying to draw her in with the familiarity. “Did you see Shawn Rudd tonight?”
Surprised, she looked up at him. “Yeah. He went off with Lodi. We split up, you know?”
“Did you see him after that?”
“I think so,” she said. “He was running. Everyone was running after me and Brian got attacked. I saw those other two guys, Lodi’s friends. They were bolting for the gate and dragging two zombies behind them. Someone hooked up with them. It might’ve been Shawn.”
“What were they doing? Where were they taking the zombies?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Lodi said something about three hundred apiece. Maybe the two guys knew where to go but me, Shawn, and Bryan didn’t know.”
In the distance, there was another siren sounding. The ambulance would be there soon. “They’re going to take you to Arthur Conroy Memorial Hospital. It’s in Manhattan. Do you want me to call your parents?”
Crying a little more openly now, she nodded. Pulling out her phone, she scrolled through the contacts and gave Heron the number. He called it right away, while she was still there and spoke with her father. He went from confused to angry to hysterically crying. It became so that Heron couldn’t understand him and had to wait for the mother to come on the phone. She was much more controlled. Heron told her where they were taking Tiffany and promised that they’d be able to see her if they went right away. Then he hung up and returned Tiffany’s phone. The ambulance pulled up and Heron talked to the driver while the EMTs put her on a gurney and loaded her inside. He told the driver that he was to tell Dr. Luco personally that Tiffany’s parents were to be allowed to see her. He didn’t care how it was arranged but there would be hell to pay if it didn’t happen. Swallowing, the driver promised to pass on the message.
When he was done with that, Heron pulled Smith aside and together they surveyed the yard.
“What do you think?” he asked the junior officer.
Smith shrugged. “A lot of zombies, you said.”
“Over a dozen at least.”
“Different kinds of people, right? People that shouldn’t even be here?”
Heron nodded.
“It sounds fishy. It almost sounds like someone’s bringing them here.”
"How do you feel about a stakeout?" Heron asked him suddenly.
Smith looked at him strangely. “Are you asking my opinion or giving me the job?”
"I want you to run it,” Heron told him. “Consider it a promotion."
"Is it all right if I don't say thank you?"
Heron nodded, grinning. “Post a car or two and see who comes and goes from this place during the day."
"Anything else?"
Heron nodded. "One more thing. Between the church this morning and now this, it seems that large numbers of zombie are starting to collect, or, as you say, be collected in different places. I need you to find those places." He was running the numbers through his head. Culph had reported around four hundred people missing. If there were four hundred zombies in New York City, they might not get noticed. A thousand or even ten thousand wouldn’t even make a dent in the population. But how long would it take before ten thousand was a hundred thousand? "Pull some guys and form your own team. Stake out and investigation."
“Anything else?” Smith asked.
Heron shook his head, and wandered back to his car. Getting into the driver’s seat, he pulled out Shawn’s phone and started scrolling through the text messages. Before his was one from his mother and another from someone named Marcus. Further investigation showed that there were several from Marcus and a few from Lodi. Tiffany had mentioned that name. He wondered about the youth he’d seen at the battle site. Zombies didn’t attack their own so he must have been one of the hunters. Maybe it had been Lodi himself. There was no way to know. Just then, his priority had to be in finding Shawn. If he had gotten out as Tiffany had suggested, then he was likely safe. Heron was reluctant to call Shawn’s home, so he figured to start with some of his latest contacts. Jotting down some numbers in case the battery died, Heron called into the precinct and got the ball rolling on his investigation. It was going to be a long night.
***
Halfway into the evening, Marcus finally decided to emerge from his office and conduct a little business. There was a catwalk that ran along the front of the offices on the upper level. The whole thing was a corrugated steel construction meant to provide foremen a place to put themselves while men worked in the warehouse. Marcus came out now and leaned on the railing. Out ahead of him he could see the ring and the seats all around it. The place wasn’t as packed as he had expected. Maybe he wouldn’t need to buy those seats after all. Still, it was a good night. The floor seats were filled and the people in the bleachers had enough room to be comfortable, but just enough. The betting would put them over the top.
There was a fight going on just then and Marcus shook his head as he watched. There was a guy in a black martial arts outfit in the ring with six zombies. Marcus loved the stupid ones. Six zombies was a lot for anyone. As he watched, he knew exactly what was going to happen. The guy could fight; there was no doubt about it. Whatever style of martial arts he was using, he was an expert. He expertly placed kicks and punches and twisted the zombies over and around, depositing them on their asses. But they didn’t care. They didn’t feel pain and they just kept getting up. Weapons were forbidden in the ring and without one, you had to grab your target by the head and bash it into the gate or into the turnbuckle. Otherwise, you were eventually going to wear yourself out. They kept getting these fancy fighters who thought that the techniques they used in tournaments or even on the street would work against the zombies.
Toby’d been smart, too. Recognizing the limits of their stock, he’d sent in this giant of a zombie with one arm. The martial arts guy was having a lot of trouble with him. He could have probably dispatched him very easily if he was alive but when what you’re fighting is just dead weight, it’s like fighting the heavy bag. The very heavy bag. And, though you might get in some good licks, the heavy bag always stands its ground and you’re the one who walks away.
Eventually, inevitably, there was a mistake. For just a moment, the fighter became sloppy and a zombie got underneath him. Even from up by his office, he could see the thing nick the guy’s ankle with its teeth. The sloppy moment ended and the guy pulled his foot away before there could be any real damage but it didn’t matter. He was finished. At least he’d look good fighting in the ring next week.
Marcus’ phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. It was Toby. “Yeah?”
“Three of the guys from the hunt are here. They brought two zombies with them.”
“Really?” Marcus asked, surprised. “I though Leron called it off.”
“Ain’t no Leron,” Toby said. “He disappeared again.”
That was bad news and it made Marcus nervous. “Okay. I’ll meet the hunters around back. Send PJ and Vito around to meet me.” Then he changed the subject. “Are you watching this fight?”
“Of course.”
“Did you see him get bitten?”
“On the foot, yeah.”
“Get him out of there quick and get yourself some backup. He may not be able to handle six zombies but he will definitely kick your ass.”
