“Because it involved and armored car, sir,” Alex said to Hammond expectantly.
“So? Armored cars are the Fed’s problem.”
“Sir, if you look through your reports from the past few days, you will find that we have some um . . . materials being shipped to an NIH research facility at Brantley and Reese. We believe this was one of the vehicles bound for that destination. We lost contact with our agent before we could confirm it.”
Hammond looked down at the files on the desk and sighed. “What kind of materials, Bishop, and why in the hell wouldn’t we use our own people?” Hammond growled.
Bishop paced the length of the room and stopped in front of the bay window, and then gazed out over the graying city. Dark clouds swirled ahead, and tiny raindrops splashed upon the glass. “Biological research,” Agent Bishop said, pausing. “It’s all in the report, sir.”
Hammond cast a longing glance at the drawer that contained his liquor bottle. He already knew that the reason behind their choice in transport, if the public had gotten wind that Homeland Security was messing with biotech, it would cause an uproar that would undoubtedly have lasting repercussions to the current administration. People had already begun to speculate that Homeland had all sorts of nefarious agendas, for instance, buying up caches of weapons and ammo. They were correct in that assumption, but they didn’t need to know that. The reason they had just recently started looking into and studying biological entities was due in no small part to the alarming amount of weapons being offered on the black market.
Hammond reached in his drawer and withdrew the bottle and two glasses; he poured the amber liquid into the glasses and held one out to Agent Bishop.
Bishop cocked an eyebrow at the director.
“Trust me, Bishop, you’re gonna want this. Your day is about to get a hell of a lot more complicated,” Hammond said and nocked the shot back. Slamming the glass down on top of his file folders, he reached for the phone on his desk. “Tracy, put me in touch with the secretary of defense.”
Chapter 4
Karen sat around the kitchen table staring at a tiny laptop screen. Pale blue light cast across Karen’s smooth feminine features as she tried unsuccessfully to input information for the day’s attendees. She rubbed her temples and massaged her face, trying to stave off the headache that was brewing in her brain. Children ran about the small trailer crazily as Karen rubbed her temples.
“Chill out!” she screamed, and the children, as usual, completely ignored her. Karen stood from the wooden kitchen chair and stormed into the living room. The eight young boys and girls immediately stopped what they were doing and stared at her. Karen held her breath; quietly she exhaled.
“Okay who wants to play a game?” she said calmly. Karen looked at her charges and quickly thought of the game on the fly. She arranged all the children in a circle around the living room. Karen stood in the center and clapped her hands together in front of her face. “Okay, now who knows how to play Duck, Duck, Goose?”
Tiny hands shot up in the air.
The first boy to be it was a chubby blond-haired, seven-year-old named Rich. Richie, to everyone who knew him, walked around the circle, patting the other children on the head as he went.
“Duck, duck, duck, goose!” the boy shouted and slapped a wisp of a girl named Sophie on the top of her head, causing her to involuntarily wince. She jumped up and frantically began to run around the circle while being pursued by the chubby boy. Richie ran as fast has he could, hands outstretched almost touching her long auburn hair that fluttered behind her. Just as he was about to tag her and relive himself from being it he tripped over his own two feet and stumbled head first into one of the front bay windows, smacking his head against the double panes of glass. Sophie sat back down in her spot and smiled smugly in satisfaction. Richie, who was now tangled in the forest-green flower-patterned curtains, shook and spun around frantically, trying to dislodge himself as if caught in a giant spider-web. He caught a glimpse outside of the window in the graying landscape and froze. He gasped suddenly.
Richie stumbled backward and shook his little head back and forth, trying to clear the invisible cobwebs that suddenly clouded his rattled brain. He opened his eyes and shuddered. Richie backed away from the window slowly, his mouth dropping open and lip quivering. He raised his right hand and pointed toward the window.
Karen had been watching the little boy, and asked, “Richie, you okay?” she said, furrowing her eyebrows with concern.
“Mmm . . . Mrs. Karen, there’s a man outside and he’s, he’s . . .” Richie stammered, unable to finish the sentence.
Karen quizzically eyed the boy. She stood and walked over to the window. She pulled the curtain open and peered outside.
“What the . . .” she whispered to herself. A man was crouched down not two feet from the window. He appeared to be holding something in his hands and chewing on it. His head seemed to bite down on something and frantically jostle back and forth and tear away at the object he was holding. Karen stared intently at the man, noticing a stream of blood running down the disheveled-looking man’s fingers. “Holy Shit!” she said a bit louder than she meant to.
“Aw! Mrs. Karen, you said a wordy dirty!” the kids exclaimed.
The man stopped his feast and lifted his head in the direction of the home. He cocked his nose in the air and sniffed. He snarled, baring his bloody teeth, and dropped what appeared to be the corpse of a neighborhood cat.
Karen backed away from the window, in a panic. The man suddenly shot up and ran for the window, slamming face first into it. Blood and saliva oozed down the surface of the glass and smeared as he began to pound on the window. The first pane of glass began to crack under the onslaught. Karen looked around wildly; quickly, she moved to the children’s cubbies and grabbed a red backpack that contained essential supplies for the kids. She shouldered the bag and looked at the children, trying to remain calm as the crazy man assaulted her window. She risked a glance over her shoulder and noticed the man still slamming into the pane of glass. It seemed others had joined him; panic momentarily moved across her face. What the hell is going on? she thought.
“Okay, boys and girls, I want everyone to line up and follow me.” She appeared to be calm and in control; however, her insides were doing summersaults.
Quickly, she led the children into her bedroom, shutting and locking the door; she then proceeded to lead them into the bathroom and into a large closet. Her husband—thank God—had insisted that the closet be well stocked with food and water, as well as weapons hidden behind a false wall. She hated the thought of having guns in the house; however, they were unknown and inaccessible to the children, and she had tolerated the idea. At this moment, she was grateful she had relented to his paranoia. She piled the children inside of the small space and closed and locked the reinforced door just as there was a loud crash inside of the living room. The closet plunged in darkness, and the kids screamed.
“Shhh, shhh, shhh!” Karen exclaimed. “It’s okay,” she whispered and felt around the shelving units for a windup lantern. She found what she was looking for and turned it on. The small lantern flooded the closet with a dim fluorescent light.
Karen shrugged off the red backpack and began rooting through it, pulling out some crayons and a few coloring books.
“Okay, who wants to color a picture?” she said, trying to remain calm.
A little girl with blonde pig tails and a flower-patterned dress looked up at her, and asked, “What’s going on, Mrs. Karen? What was wrong with that man?”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” she replied. “But we’re safe here,” she assured them all. Karen silently prayed that she was correct. She handed each one of the children a coloring book and a small pack of crayons, and then listened to the sounds of her home being ransacked by strangers. She eyed the far wall of the closet and contemplated if she would be willing to open it and retrieve the firearms that lie beneath the drywall. If it came down to it, she would do whatev
er it took to keep the children in her care safe, which included facing her fears, and going against her beliefs. In the dim light of the lantern, her mind drifted back to the past.
Karen stood in her friend Jenna’s home; she was thirteen. Her parents were at work, and Jenna and Karen roamed around the neighborhood until there was absolutely nothing left to do. They ultimately wound up at Jenna’s house planning on watching some MTV and eating chips and dip, conversing about boys and hot rock stars. As they entered the house, Jenna’s brother, Seth, was lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs. A neat hole bore through the boys left leg. He lay there unconscious, blood spreading out and seeping into the carpeted stairs and landing beneath. A hunting rifle that had belonged to their father lay next to him on the stair landing. The girls screamed and were paralyzed and rooted to the floor, staring at the young man.
Jenna moved and ran to her brother, crouching down beside him. She frantically called his name and shook his shoulders, trying desperately to wake him. Karen looked around, found the phone, and proceeded to call the police. The police and ambulance showed up a little while later and took the boy to the hospital.
Ultimately, Seth had lost the leg. The bullet from his father’s hunting rifle had shattered the bone and caused so much nerve damage that the leg caused more pain than it was worth. After years of therapy, treatments, and pain management, Seth decided just to have the damn leg removed in favor of a prosthetic.
Karen remembered the pain that one bullet, one mistake, had caused and had loathed the use of firearms ever since. She stared at the false wall warily. If it were absolutely necessary, she would do what she had to do. She just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Chapter 5
Marvin darted his eye’s back and forth, tapping on the armored car’s steering wheel, searching for an exit.
I gazed out of the windows and watched in abject horror as more and more people seemed to be devoured and, only moments later, get back up and add to the onslaught of bodies now assaulting the perimeter of the armored vehicle. The black behemoth visibly swayed back and forth under the immense pressure being exerted by the assailants. Those unfortunate enough to be pressed against the solid steel armored car were split open and crushed into a bloody pulp under the combined weight of so many gathering in. I watched in revulsion as the head of a gangly man burst like a melon in a microwave. Blood and brain matter shot out and oozed down the heavy ballistic glass and armored plating. Quickly I turned my head and fought the urge to vomit. I tried in vain to unsee the carnage, but that in itself was about as effective as trying to unsee a half-naked fat chick in a Go-Go skirt going down on my hairy-as-an-ape neighbor, behind the privacy fence in the backyard, when my brothers and I were hiding in the trees behind our house as children, playing army men with the other neighborhood kids. As I recall, I puked then too.
“Marvin, buddy, are you planning on getting us the hell out of here anytime soon?” I tried to come across sardonic, but it more than likely sounded like a whimper of panic. I really didn’t have time to care, if I’m honest. I was visibly shaking at this point. I hadn’t been this scared since the time my ex-girlfriend cheated on me, and I had to go through a battery of tests to make certain I didn’t have any kind of VD. It had taken weeks upon weeks of anxiety and flat-out fear before those tests results came back and let me know she hadn’t infected me with anything except a major case of the heebie-jeebies. As it was, I was somewhat of a freak when it came to germs.
When I was a kid, I developed a habit of washing my hands at every single possible opportunity that I could get, trying my damnedest to keep any of the invisible horrors away. Finally, my mother got fed up with my neurosis and decided to do something about it. She crammed my hands in the dirt and forced me to sit there for about an hour and would not, for the life of me, let me get up and wash my hands. I panicked, I cried, pretty sure but not entirely certain that I went into convulsions, and then finally I relented. After she was satisfied that I was not going to end up like Adrian Monk and suffer a nervous breakdown and never leave my house, she let me get up and wash my hands, and be done with it.
Marvin began to speak and snapped me out of my revelry.
“I’m looking. I’m looking. Quit pestering me. I can’t just drive off and plow over a bunch of people,” Marvin insisted.
“Dude, seriously, they are trying to kill us,” I pleaded.
It was at this point the cop that was with us piped up, “He’s right. You know, if you wait much longer, we’re not going to be able to drive out of here. There’s just too many of them. I say just roll over the bastards and let God sort it out later.”
Marvin cocked an eyebrow at the officer. “You know that’s your own men out there, right?” he said incredulously.
“God damn it, don’t you think I’m aware of that?” the Officer growled letting his emotions slip, he then softened, “Look, those men out there are like brothers to me. However, right now, they seem to be more like the enemy, so get this bucket moving before we all end up like them.” The officer pointed out the window halfheartedly at the massing brood.
Marvin shook his head back and forth and let out a sigh. “You may want to buckle up then. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.” Marvin cocked his head to the side in thought. “Hell, it’s a bumpy ride even without all of this shit going on.” Marvin threw the vehicle in first gear, depressed the clutch, and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The engine roared to life. Marvin revved the machine several times, halfheartedly hoping the noise rumbling forth would give pause to the people standing in front of the truck. Sadly, it did not. If anything, it seemed to aggravate them even more, and they redoubled their efforts assaulting the side of the vehicle.
Marvin released the clutch and began moving the vehicle forward, slowly knocking bodies askew. As the truck’s speed increased, the bodies seemed to almost fly out of the way, reminding me of a man with a leaf blower cutting a path through fallen leaves. Figures fell away and began to give chase, some of them simply hung onto the bumper and mirror assembly. Just as we started to break free of the crowd, we heard sirens begin to amass in the distance.
The officer’s ears perked up. “Finally, the fucking cavalry has decided to grace us with their presence,” Officer Dick-head said, gazing out the truck’s tiny window trying to spot the telltale signs of emergency vehicles.
Sirens grew louder and seemed to come from all directions, converging on our location. They, however, were not the usual local PD that we had expected. White SUVs embossed with the Homeland Security seal surrounded the area of the highway that we were currently attempting to drive on.
“Why the hell is Homeland here?” I asked no one in particular. Everyone just simply stared out of the windows, wondering the same exact thing. I gazed out of the portal at the oncoming vehicles and noticed a large jet fly overhead. Military, from the looks of it, but I was uncertain if it was even related to what was going on. Being so close to the airport as well as an Air National Guard station, it could have been in the air for any number of reasons. I dismissed it and watched as the Homeland vehicles approached.
The Homeland Security vehicles amassed ahead of us, positioning them in a semi-circle around the front of our vehicle. They parked a mere two hundred or so yards away. Marvin had to slam on the brakes to avoid skidding across the wet road and ripping through the Government SUVs like pieces of tin foil.
A graying-haired man dressed in black and gray BDUs with a gold badge attached to his belt, and a lanyard around his neck, stepped out of the passenger side of the SUV, holding what looked like a megaphone. Our efforts to get away from the approaching horde appeared to be in vain as the Department of Homeland Security usurped our actions. White SUVs appeared behind us in the distance, effectively surrounding our location, and blocking any means of escape. Men in black BDUs and balaclavas seemed to materialize out of every nook and cranny, each armed with what looked like MP5s. With the heavy armor of our vehicle, the 9 mm rounds woul
d do nothing more than scratch the paint. The man with a megaphone sidled up beside the lead SUV and began to speak as the horde of sickened people once again gathered around our vehicle.
“Fellow officers.” The commander, at least that’s what I assumed he was, tried to play to our egos. “We need you to please remain calm, turn off your vehicle, and allow us to deal with this situation. We will then escort you out safely.”
I shook my head in confusion and looked at my companions.
“We were getting out of this situation just fucking fine till these D-bags showed up,” Marvin said with trepidation.
“Yeah,” I replied, feeling my anxiety spike even higher, if that were somehow possible. “What should we do?” I said with a ragged voice, swallowing hard. At that moment, the police officer chimed in.
“I’ve been working with these guys for a while now. We should probably comply. Besides, it doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice,” the cop said, and pointed to the group of federal officers.
Suddenly, there was a high-pitched scream from somewhere outside of our vehicle. The fact that we even heard it inside of the armored truck behind three-inch thick ballistic glass told me that the shriek had to have been extremely loud. We scanned the area in front of the windshield and saw the attention of the Homeland Security officers looking beyond us.
I jumped out of my seat and ran to the rear of the truck and peered out of the almost nonexistent rear windows. The windows themselves were actually a small piece of ballistic glass covered with a sort of reinforcing steel mesh. Through the dirt and grime that covered the small portal, I strained my eyes to see what was going on. A black-clad officer was kicking ferociously at what I assumed was a man lying face down in the street, dressed in what appeared to be mechanic’s overalls. The officer was shouting something at the man and waving an MP5 in his direction. The figure slowly crawled back to his hands and knees.
Dead Pulse Rising: A Zombie Novel Page 5
