“Brooke Hebert, AP. What steps should the public take if they are confronted with an infected individual?”
“Isolation is one step. Either isolate yourself in a safe place, be it your bedroom or attic, or isolate the infected person, by locking them in a room or closet. The infected seem to be nearly impervious to pain and are not affected by injuries to their torsos and limbs. Now I’m sure many of you have seen the footage on YouTube of those Penn State students torturing a woman who had been infected. They hit, stabbed, and shot her several times. Similar experiments of our own and the experiences of law enforcement officers nationwide mirror what that video showed. Please remember that this is a law enforcement and health issue. We do not need vigilantes making this situation worse.”
Just then, Constable Teller walked in. “Time to get going.”
They headed to the ready room. Another officer was there, supervising.
“Feel free to take as much as you can carry. We’ve got plenty of ammo, tac vests, and heavy weapons to go around,” he said.
Ed selected a pump shotgun, while Dan picked out a Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun. They both stuffed as much ammo as they could fit into their pockets and put on their bulletproof vests. Then they tossed on heavy leather jackets over top that. Thick leather riding gloves slipped over their hands.
They walked out to the exit, where several other officers were waiting. One peered out the shaded window. “Your car is just where you left it, about 20 feet that way. I don’t see anyone out there, but be careful anyways,” he warned.
The door opened and Dan and Ed slipped out, sprinting for the car. They leap-frogged each other, one moving while the other covered him, and then switching.
Dan got to the car and jumped in. Ed was a step behind him. “Next time, we park closer to the building!” Ed joked.
They started up the car and headed out on patrol. Occasionally, they would see people wandering around, even though it was well after 10 p.m. Even though they were supposed to stop, they just flashed their high beams and kept going. They knew well enough not to stop and question anyone and just drove around aimlessly, waiting for a 9/11 call.
A flash of movement caught Dan’s eye. He turned into the parking lot of Safeway. The windows were boarded up and several people, possibly a family, were standing outside, banging on the doors. A half dozen infected moved towards them. Unaware, they kept banging on the door. Ed hit the lights and siren while Dan floored it across the lot. For a brief second, Dan thought about how he missed the old style rotating dome lights on police cars, especially the way they danced off buildings, walls, and vehicles, instead of these LEDs crudely stabbing through the dark like a knife.
The infected turned at the sound and lights and moved towards the car.
Dan slammed on the brakes twenty feet from the infected. They scanned the area before getting out and leveling their weapons. They opened fire and hit most of the infected. Several went down and stayed down. One of them got up, joining the two who still remained on their feet, moving towards the officers. Ed took careful aim and blew the head off the one nearest him. Dan fired two short bursts with his MP-5 and blew the brains out of the other two.
They moved over to the infected and gave each a coup de grâce then moved back to the car. They drove to the front of the Safeway and Ed flipped on the headlights. The family turned around, pinned in the car’s high beams. They bore no signs of infection but you could never be too careful.
Ed cracked his window and said, “You should go home. The sounds of the shots are sure to attract any other infected in the area.”
“Our home burned down. We have nowhere to go,” an older man said.
“There’s a church a couple of blocks away, St. Dominics, I think, on 144th Avenue and 58 Street. They’ll take you in and help you. Now get going before it’s too late,” Ed replied.
They drove away, watching as the family piled hurriedly into their minivan.
---------
Xander and Evelyn had gone to bed relatively early, but they hadn’t gotten much sleep. The night had been cut up into parts of peacefulness and chaos, as the police responded to infected sightings in northeast Edmonton. Given that Xander’s condo was only a couple of blocks from the North Division Police Station, the night air seemed to be filled with sirens, screeching brakes, squealing tires, people’s screams, and even the occasional gunshot.
After a very restless night, Xander woke up and got out of bed. Evelyn seemed to be sleeping well enough, so he did his level best to keep quiet and snuck out of the bedroom.
In the living room, he cracked the blinds a bit and looked out at the parking lot. It was quiet, but seemed emptier than it was yesterday afternoon. After watching intently for a few minutes, he was satisfied that there was no one out there. The spot where the police had shot all those infected was empty, save for a few blood stains.
Xander was making breakfast when he suddenly realized that he had forgotten the extra pistol ammo in the X-Terra.
“Fuck!” Xander shouted. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck!” He shook his head at his stupidity.
He went back in the bedroom, grabbed his pistol, and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. Why wasn’t I smart enough to buy a holster, he thought to himself.
Oh yeah, because that asshole at the gun shop gouged me on everything else, his mind answered. He grabbed his keys and the bat by the front door and looked out the peep hole.
Good, nothing.
He slowly and as quietly as he could, unlocked the door and opened it. He stuck his head out the door into the hallway. No one was around.
He slowly closed the door and locked it, then went down the hallway to the stairwell. He opened the door and carefully headed downstairs. He went right outside and headed straight to his truck, which was parked about 40 feet away. He approached his truck with care, looking in each direction, and even looking underneath it.
Still nothing.
He unlocked the door and hopped inside. He fished around under the driver’s seat and found the two boxes of ammo right where he left them. He breathed a sigh of relief and stuck them in his other jacket pocket.
“You’re getting paranoid in your old age, man,” he said aloud.
He got out and headed back to the entrance when he heard a low growl. He stopped and looked for the sound. He heard the growl again and kept scanning. Finally, he spotted the source, near the garbage dumpsters. From out of the fenced area, shambled an infected man, probably one of the homeless who lived off of the trash and empty beer bottles the condo residents routinely tossed in the dumpsters. He was at least 100 feet from Xander, and not really a concern, but Xander quickened his pace and made it back to the front door. He punched in his code and the security door buzzed open. He stepped through and into the building’s foyer. He walked past the mailboxes and pressed the elevator button.
He glanced at his mailbox. He popped his open and gazed inside. Empty. He locked it and glanced sideways. That was when he noticed the large smear of blood on the walls.
Xander turned when he heard shuffling behind him. Standing in the lounge was another infected, which turned towards Xander. He recoiled when he recognized her as Alison, his sexy neighbor from unit 218. He had met her a few times in the ‘fitness centre’, which was really nothing more than a small, stuffy room with a couple treadmills and a handful of dumb bells. Normally, she wore tight fitting spandex outfits that hugged every inch of her very fit body as she jogged. Now, her stunning looks had been replaced by a sallow complexion and a massive chest wound. She snarled at Xander as she closed the gap between them.
Xander momentarily pondered pulling the pistol and gunning her down, but paused. He stepped away from the elevator and backpedaled into the hallway. He got to the stairwell long before Alison could, and entered, taking the stairs two at a time. He paused at the second floor landing, then cautiously opened the door to the hallway.
It looked clear, so he slid out into the hallway, quietly clos
ing the door behind himself.
Down the hall, the elevator dinged and he heard it open. A second later, dead sexy Alison shambled out, cutting him off from his apartment.
What the fuck, Xander thought. They know how to use elevators?
He ran towards his door and as he neared her, he swung his bat with all the force he could muster. The bat hammered into her shoulder and she dropped. He swung the bat again and hit her in the head; she stopped moving. He wasn’t sure if she was dead and he didn’t bother checking to find out either. The bat slipped from his fingers as he raced to his door, just like a baseball player sprinting for first base. At his door, he slipped his keys in the lock with minimal fumbling and the tumblers clicked, allowing him to push the door open. He quickly locked the door and engaged the deadbolt as well. Then he slumped down on the floor by the door and nearly passed out.
He sat there for a minute, gathering his senses and trying to calm his racing heart, then got up and headed into the spare bedroom where his construction supplies were stored. He grabbed six of the 2x4s he had cut to match the front door, as well as his drill and a box of screws. He quickly mounted each of them over the door frame about a foot apart, drilling the screws into both the door and the doorframe. When he was finished, the door was quite effectively sealed shut. He made sure not to cover the peep hole, so he could at least have some idea of what was happening in the hallway.
Xander chanced a look out the peephole and the hallway was empty. Suddenly, an infected man appeared, growling at him through the peephole. He jerked back as if he had touched a hot stove.
While he went to grab his phone, the infected man started thumping on the door. Xander dialed 911, only to get a fast busy signal, over and over.
He slipped the cordless phone into his pocket and walked to the living room. He pushed the sofa in front of the door as well. After a few minutes, the thumping stopped and Xander thought he heard a scream from the hallway, followed by running footsteps.
Satisfied they were safe, at least temporarily, Xander picked up his drill and got the eye bolt from his pile of supplies and went out onto the patio. He used his stud finder to find a stud, then drilled a hole right though the wall. He took the eye bolt and forced it through, before attaching the washers and two of the biggest nuts he could find to it. Xander grabbed his rope ‘ladder’ and threaded one end of the rope through the eye bolt. He gave it a hard tug and it seemed sturdy enough. Well, it would only have to last long enough for him and Evelyn to scramble down it.
Halfway through putting in the eye bolt, Evelyn woke and walked out into the living room.
“Whatcha doing?”
“Just making sure we’re safe.”
Just then, Evelyn noticed the 2x4s mounted across the door. “What are those for?”
“I saw some infected downstairs this morning, so I put them up to keep them out.”
“What the hell were you doing downstairs?”
“Well, I foolishly forgot a couple boxes of ammo in the truck when we came back yesterday,” Xander said, sheepishly.
“You went downstairs for a couple boxes of bullets? Are you crazy?!”
“Look, I was quick, it seemed safe, and other than the woman in the lobby, it was uneventful,” Xander replied.
“Woman downstairs? What woman?”
“An infected woman followed me from the lobby and I had to hit her with the bat. She went down and didn’t get back up.”
“You killed someone!” Evelyn screamed.
“It was her or me, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me!” Xander shot back.
“Jesus Christ, you’re crazy!”
“I’d rather be alive and crazy than dead!”
“Look, just promise not to take any more risks like that, okay?”
“Sure thing, honey.”
“Don’t you honey me! I’m still pissed!”
While making Evelyn a nice breakfast, with bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, and the last of his fresh OJ, he finally got through to the police and reported the situation in his building. He was surprised when they told him they had no idea if and when they could arrive to deal with the infected. Evelyn pouted a little while they ate, but after an hour or so, everything was forgotten.
“So what else is there to do to make sure we’re okay?”
“Well, I’ve got the door secured, and our escape route, the rope ladder, is ready. Now all that has to be done is to keep our water containers full at all times. Other than that, it’s just a matter of waiting for the police to come and clear them out. If you’re willing to learn to shoot, I’ve got a pellet pistol you can practice with.”
“Okay, teach me to shoot.”
Xander spent the rest of the morning showing her how to handle a pistol, how to aim it, how to fire it, and most of all, how to respect it.
“Guns are great tools, but the minute you stop treating it right or fail to respect its power, you wind up having an accident,” Xander told her.
“Trust me, I respect it.”
He set up some paper targets in the spare bedroom and showed her how to load and fire the pellet gun.
“The pellet gun will help you develop the motor skills to aim and fire a pistol, but it will never prepare you for the noise and kick that a real pistol has. Still, it’s a good starting point.”
While she practiced, Xander went back to work, preparing. The jerky was finished, so he pulled it out of the oven and let it cool, before packing it into Ziploc baggies. After he had done everything he could think of, he surfed the net, looking for more survival tips.
Just before dinner, Xander’s phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is the police, you reported several infected individuals in your building this morning?”
“Yes, there was one by the dumpster, and at least two in the hallways,” Xander replied.
“Okay, we’ll deal with any outside first, then come inside afterwards and check it out. Can you buzz us in?” the officer asked.
“Sure, call 207 on the intercom.”
About five minutes later, two police cars pulled into the parking lot, with their tires screeching and lights flashing.
Chapter 8
September 22nd
Dan drove their car into the parking lot. Ed pulsed the siren a couple of times as they stopped. They made sure their weapons were ready and then stepped outside, not waiting for the officers in the car behind them. An infected man, with a sweater drenched in blood, rose from behind a parked car and shuffled towards them.
“I got this one,” Ed said confidently.
He took careful aim and fired. His first shot was right on the money and the infected man dropped like a stone.
“Nice shot, Ed.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice this week…”
They paused for a few minutes, waiting to see if any other infected were nearby. Then they carefully moved to where the infected man had been hiding. Sure enough, a young woman was laying there, her limbs akimbo and her throat ripped out. Just as she began to stir, Ed put a bullet through her left eye. The other two officers jogged over to Dan and Ed.
“How do you want to do this?” one of the other officers asked, whose nametag read Baxter.
“As usual, we’ll sweep it floor by floor. You take Wilson to the top floor and work your way down to us, and we’ll work our way up,” Dan said.
“Sounds as good a plan as any,” Baxter replied. “Let’s go, Wilson.”
They went back to their cars to get ready. Dan opened his trunk and pulled out a bullhorn.
Pressing the button, he said, “Attention, residents. We are here to deal with a report of infected in the hallways. Please lock your doors and stay inside. We will give you an all clear when we have finished our patrol.”
Then they all donned their riot gear and headed to the front door.
Dan pressed the buzzer.
“Is that the police?” the intercom squawked.
“Yes, please buzz us throu
gh.”
The buzzer hummed and the door unlocked. Baxter and Wilson moved to the elevator and pressed the button. It curled open and they stepped inside.
“Good luck,” Wilson said as the doors closed.
Dan and Ed stepped past the elevator into the hallway. The elevators were located in the middle of the building, so they couldn’t simply sweep in one direction down the hallway. The hallway was clear.
“Let’s take the south stairs, they look closer,” Ed offered.
They moved at a quick trot down the hallway and cautiously headed upstairs. When they got to the second floor, they slowed, raised their shields, and made sure their gear was fitted properly. Then Dan pushed the door open gently and slid out into the hallway, followed slowly and almost totally silently by Ed.
They looked down the hallway and could see several infected milling around. Ed raised his baton and banged it on his shield several times. It made a loud noise that reverberated down the hallway. The infected turned and began heading in their direction.
By now, Dan and Ed were pros at clearing infected out of buildings. Their standard tactic was to raise their shields together, creating a virtually impassable wall to hide behind, and strike over head with batons or fire pistols to incapacitate the infected. In newer buildings like this one, their shields fully covered the width of the hallway, while in older buildings with really narrow hallways, whoever was using his pistol would take up the secondary position, slightly back and to the right of the other, in effect staggering their shields. It wasn’t as safe, but it was still pretty effective. Dan, the better shot, was usually the one using his pistol, but of late Ed wanted the job.
Together they advanced on the infected down the hallway. The group of infected looked to number about a dozen. They lowered their shields and took careful aim with their pistols. As the infected closed in on them, they began to drop.
Two down.
Four down.
Six down.
“Shields up!” Ed yelled.
They holstered their pistols and then unclipped their batons. Moments before the two groups clashed, they raised their shields to take the first blows. The infected arms hammered on their shields, but couldn’t get through and gain purchase.
Zombie Night in Canada (Book 1): First Period Page 8
