Containment: A Zombie Novel

by Hippsley, B. A.

  Chapter – Three

  Sheriff Eastman’s office was a somewhat drab but serviceable room. On one side stood several grey filing cabinets topped with a number of box files. The walls were adorned with various achievement certificates, largely relating to law enforcement. On a metal wall shelf, sat a multitude of shooting awards and trophies. A large window overlooked the majestic mountain range that dominated the town, the tinted glass keeping the glare of the sun at bay. Even at this time of day it was hot. A large mahogany desk occupied the rest of the room. Positioned amongst the functionality of the desk accoutrements, was a small photo of an attractive blonde woman.

  Eastman finished the entry in his private diary and closed the book. He was still unable to fully understand what had happened earlier. What bothered him the most was trying to understand the motives of the hobo. What kind of a guy shoots three people after disarming a lawman and then gives the weapon back?

  Deputy Mitch Chattman had processed the suspect’s paperwork as soon as they’d returned. However, the hobo still hadn’t said a thing about the shootings. The female hiker, Rose Gane, had been sent with Deputy Jedrey Bodien to the health center for Anne Lenski to check over. Eastman wouldn’t have been surprised if she needed further sedation after Hinckle Point. Hell, even he felt like something a little stronger than the black coffee he was drinking. The intercom on Eastman’s desk suddenly burst into life.

  “Yeah Sheriff, it’s Mitch here. Can you come to the charge room now please?”

  “I’m busy right now Mitch.”

  “No, I mean now. There’s something you gotta to see.”

  There was something in Mitch’s voice that told him this was important.

  “Okay, I’m on my way.”

  Running his fingers through his black hair and sighing deeply, he began slotting his gun belt back through the belt loops as he walked out of the office. He had a gut feeling this was going to be another weird thing to add to the list.

  ****

  Walking the short distance to the charge room along the corridor, he passed the hulking figure of Deputy Gerard ‘T’ Benteen coming out of the rest room.

  “Hey Brad, where you off in such a hurry there, boy?”

  Eastman was still ‘smoothing over’ Benteen’s most recent indiscretion.

  “I thought you were suspended. What you after… getting in my good books?”

  Moving his head in a low arc to avoid Eastman’s gaze, Benteen said “Okay, okay, so I was a little out of order that’s all, said I was sorry.”

  Eastman looked his old High School buddy up and down, enjoying his awkwardness. It did Benteen good every so often to know who was boss. Eastman regarded Gerard as a good lawman, but he sure could fly off the handle.

  “You’re lucky that guy dropped the charges, don’t get smart with me.”

  Benteen nodded his head. Lesson learned. Eastman decided that since Gerard was about he could do some work. He’d known Benteen all his life and the guy had always been headstrong. Benteen was a powerfully built man; he was over six foot, full of muscle and mean. During their High School days it was only because of his place on the football team that Benteen hadn’t been thrown out of school. Eastman had spent many hours working with him on his academic studies and trying to keep him out of trouble. Even now as a peace officer, Eastman knew too well that Benteen was still a handful. There were always allegations against him. Benteen loved to fight. The complaints were never upheld; no one wanted to have ‘Mr Kick Ass’ on their case. This was his official nickname, however, nobody was ever dumb enough to say this to his face. Despite the trouble he caused, there was never any malice in his actions. He’d batter some guy for a misdemeanour one day and pull his truck out of a ditch the next. Benteen sure was a complicated kind of guy.

  “Gerard! Since you’re here you can do some work, come with me.”

  “Sure thing, Brad. You okay after this morning? Jedrey told me what happened. It sounded real rough up there.”

  “He took my firearm and killed three people, what do you think?”

  ****

  The charge room was small and practical with no windows. Two small holding cells occupied almost one half of the room, while the charge desk and processing station covered the rest, consisting of a photo booth and a desk with printing equipment. The strong odour of printing ink filled the air. Mitch Chattman stood with a worried look on his face. The same look a kid gets when he’s done something wrong.

  “Okay Mitch, what you broke?”

  “Sheriff how many bookings have I made?”

  “Mitch, if you got me down here for God damn twenty questions, you will be handing out parking tickets before this day ends. I promise you.”

  “He means it too, college boy,” said Benteen, drawing immense enjoyment from Chattman’s predicament.

  This outburst served only to increase Chattman’s already heightened nervous state. A small bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face and he shifted his stance awkwardly.

  “Well, what I mean is, I’ve made loads, so I reckon I know what I’m doing that’s all.”

  “Mitch is there a point to this? Because I’d like to know before I die of old age.”

  “Yeah, for a trainee Fed you ain’t exactly making much sense there, boy,” Benteen goaded, savouring Chattman’s discomfort even more.

  Not wishing to incur the further wrath of his boss or lose face in front of Benteen, Chattman managed to spit out a reply in his defence.

  “I processed that guy you brought in. I done everything that I normally do, but when I got to taking his prints… he had no prints.”

  “Exactly what do you mean he had no prints?” questioned Eastman.

  “What I mean is; there are no prints. His fingertips are smooth as a saddle blanket.”

  Eastman took a long hard look at his deputy; Mitch had worked there for over a year, he was a college boy, a smart kid and a good cop. His application for the FBI had been approved and he was in the process of leaving town to start his selection. So what the hell was he talking about?

  “Look” said Chattman, showing Eastman a set of prints and a close up of the suspect’s fingertips.

  The boy was right; the prints were totally smooth as were the shots of the fingertips. Without looking up from the prints Eastman said in a low voice, “I knew that creep was odd. None of this is good. Mitch, we still out of touch with everybody?”

  “Yeah Sheriff, I tried all ways to contact HQ and the FBI, no good.”

  Even with the fingerprints, without the FBI central database, they still wouldn’t be able to get a fix on this guy.

  “I reckon it’s about time we had a good old-fashioned word with this crazy S.O.B. don’t you Brad?”

  Looking at Benteen, Eastman nodded. They’d have to use a tougher approach with this guy.

  ****

  The jail held four standard cells, each constructed with reinforced eight-inch thick steel bars and a heavy-duty door. The jail’s windowless walls were cinder blocks, over-painted blue. Two large strip lights provided the only source of light. A simple table and chairs were the only furniture.

  Eastman walked to the table area, picked up one of the chairs, turned it back to front and sat with his arms resting on the back of the chair. The suspect was the jail’s only resident and he lay on his bed with his eyes closed. Eastman looked directly at the hobo – he knew he wasn’t asleep. He’d killed three men in cold blood and yet he seemed completely at ease. He was a cool character. He was about six foot and though not overly muscular, he was fit and able, despite obviously having lived off the land for some time. His clothes were exactly the type Eastman had seen on countless vagrants, dirty and ragged. Except the boots – they looked almost brand new. He had a rough beard and unkempt fair hair, but he still looked in better shape than any hobo Eastman had seen. This was no ordinary vagrant. He was mean and dangerous, but now he was contained, like a venomous snake.

  With a sudden explosion of noise that jolted
Eastman from his chair, Benteen hit the cell bars with a baseball bat. The hobo seemed completely oblivious to the incident and remained motionless.

  “Reckon he’s dead, Sheriff?” Benteen mocked.

  “I hope not, we want a little talk with him. I don’t have to tell you how serious this trouble is, do I?”

  Eastman looked for any response from his prisoner. There was absolutely none.

  Catching Benteen’s gaze, he raised his eyes. Benteen flew at the cell like a raging bull.

  “You better talk to me you freak or I’ll break your God damn face off!”

  The force of the bat hitting the metal reverberated around the room with such impact, even Eastman winced.

  “Now cool the hell down there, Benteen, it’s no good if you break his jaw. I‘m sick of telling you that!” Eastman quite enjoyed the play-acting.

  “You ain’t going nowhere, boy! ‘Cept to your grave. We got the death penalty here,” roared Benteen.

  “I said that’s enough, now sit the hell down!”

  Landing a hefty kick on the other chair, Benteen sent it flying into the wall with a crash, before leaning against the wall.

  “You’re going nowhere, so you may as well talk to me. I saw you kill those two guys with my gun so you can’t deny that. Now just talk.”

  The hobo moved his hands away from his eyes and swinging his powerful legs over the edge of the bed, looked directly at Eastman.

  “What’d you do with the bodies? Where are they?”

  Now the guy had spoken, Eastman pressed his advantage.

  “Why are you so interested in them, I mean they’re dead, right?”

  “You just don’t get it do you? They’re still dangerous even after they’re dead!”

  Eastman noted a rise in the other man’s voice that sounded close to panic. He was on to something here.

  “Yeah, what you get out of it boy? You still a murderer.”

  Benteen was back in play.

  “You dumb ass country boy, you can’t murder them, they’re already dead!”

  Raising his eyebrows, Benteen widened his eyes and looked at Eastman, whistling through his teeth. Eastman might have agreed this guy was crazy, had he not been there.

  “Mind telling me your name and exactly why you don’t have fingerprints mister?”

  During his long experience in law enforcement, removing someone’s fingerprints was never done for a good reason. It generally meant they were trying to hide something or from someone. Eastman’s gut reaction was that this creep was on the run. From the ease with which he’d handled the pistol, Eastman would lay odds that he was a professional killer. The hobo looked at his hands, then looked back at Eastman but he said nothing. Eastman fixed him with a long hard stare.

  “You got some kind of connection with those ‘people,’ that much I do know.”

  The hobo returned Eastman’s stare and rubbed his chin between his grimy forefinger and thumb.

  “Those things are contaminated, you understand that, right?” he said, in slow deliberate tones.

  As if to signal the end of the interrogation, he swung his legs back onto the bed and shut his eyes. As Benteen strode toward the cell, Eastman motioned him to stop. It was clear that this bozo wouldn’t volunteer any more information. They’d need to employ another tactic.

  “Let me tell you mister, prints or no prints, name or no name, we will find out who you are.” Eastman decided to conclude the interview and both men started to leave the room.

  “Sheriff, you need to cremate those bodies and you need to do it right now.”

  Eastman looked at the prisoner. What the hell was with this guy? Eastman and Benteen left the room and headed for Eastman’s office.

  ****

  Eastman sat behind his desk and spread his fingers, then joining them like a ribcage at the tips, looked at Benteen through the gaps.

  “Well that went really well. He’s playing his own ball game with his own rules. I’m going to nail this bum, Gerard.”

  Eastman realised that Benteen was unusually quiet and this worried him a lot.

  “Okay, what’s eating you?”

  “Nothing…we... look Brad, we got work to do that’s all.”

  “Yeah I know. I’m going over the med centre to talk with Anne.”

  “I ain't talking about those bodies; I’m talking about the blackout. We got to get us a plan to deal with that.”

  “Gerard, we got a meeting with Mayor Firth this afternoon, we’ll do it then. First we’ve got multiple homicides to deal with, remember?”

  “Brad, the way I see it, is we got ourselves a situation here that we gotta deal with pronto. You need to get your head squared and sort this out.”

  “What do you mean get my head squared?”

  There was a tone in Benteen’s voice that Eastman didn’t care for. And he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

  “Brad, I know what you went through at Hinkle Point; I… no, no I don’t know, I wasn’t there. It must have been tough; a guy takes a lawman’s gun and then murders three people in front of him. That’s just a crock. I know you want this guy bad, but there’s other things need doing. Psycho guy is in jail and murdered guys are in the morgue, none of them are going anyplace soon. We got us a town full of spooked citizens who can’t even call 911. When it gets dark, some people are gonna see this as a free for all garage sale.”

  Holding up his hand, Eastman looked at Benteen and shook his head. They were some way to calling out the National Guard and somebody had already suggested that.

  “Now wait there, before we all go declaring a full blown state of emergency here, Firth will cover it this afternoon.”

  “Aw, crap! Brad, Firth’s a fat clown. He’s gonna turn up with election posters; he ain’t interested in no damn emergency plan. It’s you the town look to; they want you to run things.”

  “Tony Firth is the legally elected Mayor – not me. It all has to come from him, Gerard.”

  Replacing Firth would be like a kind of martial law. Even if Benteen was half right, that’s not how he worked.

  “You been out there and seen what’s going on recently?”

  “Yes of course I have,” began Eastman but Benteen interrupted him.

  “When I found out what was going on I came into town, even though you done suspended me and all, to see if I could help. McReedy’s gun shop had idiots lining up in the middle of the road, I near run Bill Gardener down. I shut McReedy’s and sent those bozos home. It ain't good out there buddy and it’s gonna get worse. At night people are gonna start popping rounds off all over the place. They’ll panic and we gonna get casualties. You need to take your head outta your ass and take over, damn it!”

  Eastman rubbed his eyes. Benteen was right. The hobo was going nowhere fast and neither were the bodies. The current emergency had to take priority over this freaky case. Maybe Benteen was right, maybe he had taken it all too personal; after all it was his gun the guy had used.

  “Okay Gerard, we’re going to call a meeting here with just our people and we need to deputise more townsfolk. I want a list of all the military guys and we need to organise citizen patrols for the duration.”

  Eastman reached into the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a silver deputy badge. Tossing the badge up and down in his hand like a dime, he eventually threw it to Benteen.

  “You’ll need that and I need you. Consider yourself un-suspended Deputy Benteen.”

  Benteen gave Eastman a wry smile and nodded. “You know it, boss.”

  “Gerard you get your butt out there and get all our people together and tell Clara to make those lists. I’m gonna see how Anne’s doing; I’ll be back for the meeting here at one.”

  Chapter - Four

  Armstrong dated back to the Old West but hadn’t really prospered until the 1960’s when the US Air Force had constructed a listening post there. Most of the town’s two thousand inhabitants were the descendants of the original military personnel. There’d been a thriving sa
wmill and logging plant, but those were the boom days. The break-up of the Soviet Union rendered such military establishments obsolete, shutting the base. The decline in timber sales had closed the logging plant and last year the sawmill had moved to another county.

  To any tourists who ventured there, Armstrong seemed to meet their perception of the typical mid western town. They viewed through romantic eyes, a quaint old town that had stood still since the 1960’s. For the people who lived there, the reality was somewhat different.

  Sitting in her car, with the air conditioning blasting out cool air, Doctor Lenski pushed her sunglasses onto her long dark hair and took in the sights of the town. Among the faded stars and stripes of the flags that draped along the avenue, yet another For Sale sign had appeared. The shop beneath it sat empty, it’s once clean and bright windows now dirty and smeared with window polish. Five years ago, there’d been all sorts of shops and diners on Main Street. Now they’d all but gone, replaced by an ever-growing number of empty shops, each one as faded as the hopes and dreams on which they’d been built at one time built on someone’s aspirations.

  Anne had noticed the increase in small groups of men, standing about, idly talking. Two years ago these men would have all been employed, but now there was hardly any work. The closure of the sawmill had hit the town hard, badly affecting the economy and promoting a mini exodus. Whole families had moved to find work. She remembered how painful it had been for everyone.

  Although unemployment was high, the people got by, working in whatever capacity they could. A lot of the guys made a living as guides for the tourists. This was only seasonal; the rest of the year they had to rely on welfare.

  Shambling down the sidewalk was the unkempt form of Robert Pool. His New York baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, his hands thrust firmly into his beer stained vest, he was drunk again. He was always drunk. After his son was killed in the war, he’d hit the bottle and lost his shop. Anne treated more people for alcohol abuse and depression than any other single ailment. Times were bad.