Zombies! (Episode 5): Sinners and Saints (4 page)

“You were supposed to help Toby finish pulling zombies for tonight.”

Leron shrugged again.

“Did something happen? Toby said you had a problem in the pen.”

“Old fucker twisted my arm is all.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Lay off, man.”

“Were you bitten?”

“Don't be stupid,” but his voice shook as he said it. “I got spooked, okay? Old guy twisted my arm and tried to bite through my clothing. I didn't want to go back in, okay?”

Marcus backed off. “Okay. I sent Damon and PJ to help Toby finish up.”

Leron nodded, but didn't seem relieved. His attitude had Marcus worried. He was definitely hiding something, and poorly. He didn't look sick, just nervous. He kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes down. Still, it wouldn't do any good to push him. Having grown up with Leron, Marcus knew just how far he could get without hitting the brick wall. So he changed the subject.

“I want you to call off the hunt tonight.”

Leron looked up. “What?”

“It's not safe.”

That got some genuine laughter. “What about this job
is
safe?”

“I don't mean that,” Marcus said. “I think the police might be onto it.”

Leron's eyes narrowed. “Where did you hear that?”

“It's not important. Just call it off.”

“No way, man. We need the stock so you tell me.”

Marcus stewed for a few moments, wondering how he had become the defender and Leron the attacker. “I told you to leave the high school kids out of this.”

“I knew it!” Leron shouted. “This ain't about cops. It's that little boy toy of yours.”

“Watch it, Leron.” Leron had discovered Marcus' affair with Shawn by accident and had been lording it over his head ever since. He liked the idea of Marcus being a homosexual because it helped him combat the inferiority complex he had in Marcus' presence.

“What you gonna do, Marcus? You gonna hit me with your fairy wand?”

Marcus stepped close and put his nose up against Leron's nose. “High school kids have gone missing and the police are looking for the reason. Call it off.”

“Don't get in my face, man.”

They stayed that way for a moment until Marcus stepped away.

Satisfied, Leron said, “I'll see what I can do.”

***

Since the disaster in Bucksburg West Virginia, where eleven hundred people had lost their lives to the zombie plague in less than a week, law enforcement had become a very difficult and demanding job. It was all the mayor could do to keep the military off of the streets of New York. The President was determined to squash the infection into nothing more than the chicken pox but he couldn't do that if it was spreading like wildfire and wiping whole towns off of the map. A city like New York was the perfect breeding ground for any disease and the last thing the U.S. needed was ten million zombies spreading out from the East Coast. That put the commissioner of police on twenty four hour alert. He received a relatively huge sum of money from the state so that he could hire more cops and divert more resources to the zombie task force. By the time the name
Bucksburg
had reached the West Coast, Lieutenant Anthony Heron had a small army under his command.

For him, it was a mixed blessing. The job was ceaseless, new calls coming in all of the time. Even when he was at home and asleep, Heron was on duty. Unlike the early weeks, most calls now were legitimate. The gear that men wore to fight zombies was at hand every moment of every day. A squad of men was always kept battle ready for the few calls that involved more than one or two zombies. Though his responsibility was to coordinate offensives, the lieutenant found more and more often that he was required to go out in the field. On the plus side, all of the work had helped him to forget about the loss of his partner at the very beginning of the zombie plague. It was a loss that had affected him deeply. Previously, his best solace had been in helping his partner's family, but they had shut him out, unable to move past their grief with Heron serving as a constant reminder of what they'd lost. The busy schedule also prevented him from dwelling on the cancer that had invaded his body. He was still undergoing chemotherapy treatments and still suffering from the side effects, but he had adjusted to the physical detriments and was now able to put the emotional out of his mind.

When he arrived at the office that Saturday morning, all was in chaos. The department had given him two floors in a building. Well, technically, one of the floors was a basement that had been previously used for storage. But he'd had men clean it out and set it up as a preparation area. It came in handy to have a big open space where men could gear up and get quickly to the vans. The other floor was the twelfth. Heron took the elevator up, one hand in his pocket fidgeting with an invisible cigarette. He missed them badly, even knowing that they had been killing him slowly for years. As he got off of the elevator, he took in the scene not with the sense of satisfaction another might have had at seeing his team running efficiently, but with a sense of fatigue. It was going to be another busy day.

He didn't make it half way to his office before he was intercepted by Frank Culph. Culph had become his second in command almost immediately and entirely by chance. As a patrol officer, he'd been on duty near
Sisters of Charity Hospital
when all hell had broken loose in the ER. It was after that incident that Heron had been given the task force. He'd only taken the job half seriously at the time and when asked to pick a number two, he'd picked the first man in line of sight. That had been Frank Culph.

Culph's approach to the job was aggressive, almost reckless. He craved the action and had found the early days frustrating. Even though they weren't partners and rarely if ever took calls together, Heron had tried to view Culph as a replacement for his late partner, Johan Stemmy. It was a dangerous game, and a fool's one at that. The differences between Stemmy and Culph were too numerous to count. Stemmy had been older and more experienced than Heron. While he had never needed a mentor, he had still deferred to Stemmy as the senior officer. Culph was many more years his junior than Stemmy had been his senior. Culph was impetuous and, to tell it honestly, a bit mean. These qualities had increased over the past few weeks as they had become more and more busy.

On the other hand, Culph was a decent cop. He knew right from wrong and
never
challenged Heron in front of anyone from the squad. He was dependable and always willing to take point during any assignment. For all of his lesser qualities, Culph had been a good choice as a second in command.

“What?” he said to Culph, perturbed that he hadn't even at least been allowed to hang up his coat.

“It's bad. You might even want to come along.”

Heron took a deep breath, not as hard these days now that he was pretty well healed up from the cancer surgery. “What is it?”

“Some guy called raving about the zombies. He said he went to the church this morning to make the lunches for the Saturday groups and he saw the devil.”

“That's it?”

Culph shook his head. “First response was an hour ago. We thought it was one or two zombies from the way the guy was talking. We sent four guys.”

Heron looked hard at him. “Tell me there are no casualties.”

“We got a call five minutes ago and have been scrambling ever since. Only one guy made it out and he's wounded.”

So much for getting home early. Alicia would be angry. Since Stemmy, not one police officer had been wounded by a zombie in the line of duty. Honestly, the undead were no match for trained and armed police officers. They were slow and careless. They were noisy. They were essentially target practice.

“The men were overwhelmed,” Culph continued, leading Heron back into the elevator. “He reported close quarters and more zombies than they could count.”

“What's the situation now?”

“The wounded officer's on his way to
Arthur Conroy
and regular PD has the building surrounded. They have orders to shoot anything that comes out.”

They left the elevator and headed toward the parking garage. Already the street out front was alive with police vans rushing off, sirens blaring. Culph would ride with Heron. Heron would drive.

“And what about this cook?” Heron asked. “The guy who made the first call.”

“His name's Raoul Dominguez,” Culph answered. “I ordered that he remain on the scene so we could have a word with him.”

Heron nodded. Culph had done a good job. Of course, three cops were dead and one was wounded. And in that line of work, wounded means dead. Being a police officer is not an easy or a safe job by any stretch of the imagination. But Heron was beginning to wonder if they hadn't grown complacent on the zombie task force. Holding off a few zombies at a time had kept them busy. But were they really ready to hold off the end of the world?

If there are no cars on the road, the trip from the Manhattan office to the church in Queens takes about twenty minutes. Even with lights flashing and sirens screaming, the traffic was a terrific obstacle that doubled their travel time. Heron drove with his hands gripping the wheel tightly, the color draining from his knuckles. Next to him, Culph sat in silence, his eyes focused on the cars out the front windshield, his left leg bobbing up and down in anticipation.

When they finally arrived, there were police barriers cordoning off the area and regular duty cops on the scene. Sharpshooters had been positioned around the perimeter of the church in case any of the zombies decided to go for a Saturday morning stumble outdoors. News crews and other onlookers were crowding the barriers, pushing the limits of the defined boundaries and the peacekeepers' patience. The scene reminded both Culph and Heron of the circus that had formed around
Sisters of Charity
when its ER had been invaded by one zombie. That one zombie had spawned two more in minutes. What the hell had happened here?

Pulling the car over by the curb, Heron got out and found the sergeant in charge. She was a beefy woman with a round face and sunken eyes. Her long hair was tied up in all sorts of places and bounced as one piece against the back of her head. She grabbed Heron's hand with all of the energy she could muster and pumped it hard up and down.

“Pleasure, Lieutenant,” she said. “I'm Dorothy Sisco.”

“What's the situation, Sergeant Sisco?”

“No one's come out of the church since Officer Xu. We've got the city plans for the building ready for your inspection and have covered every exit with sharpshooters.”

Heron nodded. “Where's the cook? Dominguez.”

“Right this way, sir.” She led him away from his car and over to a little man with greased black hair and a lined face. Raoul Dominguez was about fifty years old, give or take half a decade, and he looked as if he'd worked every last minute of it. His arms and neck were thick and corded with veins. Though the wrinkles on his face showed clearly, his eyes were bright and, right now, a bit wild. He looked up at Heron as the lieutenant approached and began speaking rapidly in Spanish.

“Does he speak English?” Heron asked the sergeant.

At that, Dominguez abruptly stopped talking and switched to a fluent, though heavily accented English. “I'm sorry, sir. When I'm nervous, I forget to speak English.” He was sitting on a crate on the curb across the street from the church. There was a similar crate turned over a few feet away and Heron grabbed it and took it as a seat of his own. Culph hung about for a moment, then went off with the sergeant to check the building plans.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Heron asked when they were alone.

Beginning to wring his hands, Dominguez nodded. Stopping every few moments to gather his thoughts and make sure of his words, Dominguez explained that the church held numerous classes and group functions on Saturday mornings. Dominguez had been hired to cook lunch for the people involved every week. He used the basement kitchen. Since it took him about half an hour to prepare the kitchen and get the meals started, he usually showed up around ten o'clock. Classes and groups were already in session by then so he went in through the back door that led down to the kitchen through the storage room. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he noticed an open trapdoor in the floor of the room. He'd worked in that kitchen for over a year and had never had any idea that there was a door there. He said he called down into the trap but there had been no answer. He might have gone down but there were no lights. It was then that he'd realized just how quiet the whole church was. Investigating the corridors, he'd seen multiple figures. Many of the lights had been damaged but he knew by the smell that there was death in that church. Then he'd run back through the kitchen and storeroom, up the stairs, and out to safety.