Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (5 page)

“What the hell?  What happened?”  As Cillian watched, a man dug into another’s chest with his teeth.

“I don’t know.”  The cop climbed back into the front seat.  “We got called in when some guy flipped out and started attacking people.  Next thing we knew, lots more people were fighting.”

“Some terrorist group or cult trying to stir up shit?”  It was the first thing Cillian thought of.

“Maybe...”  The cop took a deep breath.

Cillian sensed he wasn’t telling him something.  “What is it?”

“What?”  The cop faced him, his blue eyes wide open.

“You saw something, I can tell.  What happened?”

The cop looked back out the windshield and then back at Cillian.  “You’re not going to believe me.”

“Try me.”  Cillian liked to think he was fairly open-minded.

“Well...”  The cop took another steadying breath.  “There was this security guard, right?  He and a bunch of others were trying to subdue this attacker.  The guy had already injured several people, even stabbed one with an umbrella.  Well, this other officer tased him, but the guy bit into his throat.  I mean, he ripped it right out.  The officer bled to death right there.”

“Jesus.”  Cillian took the helmet off his head and ran a hand through his dark, stubby hair.  “You didn’t know him, did you?”

“No, different precinct.  That’s not even the worst part.”  The cop was starting to look a little green.  “Later on, he got back up.”

“Who got back up?”

“The officer.”

“The dead officer?”

“Yeah, the dead officer.”

“Are you sure he was dead?”

“Of course I was sure!” the cop snapped.  “You don’t think I've seen a dead guy before?  I used to work with a cadaver dog.  I’ve seen plenty.  His blood had totally stopped pumping.  He was dead.  He was dead but he got up and started attacking more people anyway.”

“I
must
still be asleep.”  Cillian closed his dark eyes and shook his head.  This cop was nuts, right?

“You wish, buddy.  Hey, can you drive this thing out of here?”

Cillian looked over at the officer.  “One, I’m not leaving without my partners.  And two, there is no way I’m trying to drive through that mob of people.”

“Dude, look out there.  I don’t think your partners are going to come back.”  The cop pointed out through the windshield.  It
was
pretty hectic out there.

“I’m still not going to drive through them.  Someone is bound to get run over, and they might start attacking the rig.  These things
can
be flipped with enough force, you know.  Aren’t you supposed to be a cop?  Shouldn’t you be helping those people?”

“I tried, believe me I did.  But I need to get home.  I have a little girl I have to get to.  If she hears about this, and she will, she’ll be so scared.”  Real concern crossed the cop’s features as he slumped into the seat.

Cillian felt for the guy, well, more for his kid, but he still wasn’t going to drive into that mob.

“What’s your name, by the way?  I’m Sam Carter.”  The cop named Sam held out his hand.

“Cillian Knight.”  They clasped hands and shook once.  Sam’s hand was disgustingly sweaty, so Cillian wiped his hand on his shirt, not caring if he offended the officer.  Sam didn’t seem to notice.

Slam!

Both men jumped and turned towards the passenger door where something had just collided with it.  Sam moved as far away from it as possible and put his hand on his pistol.

A red hand reached up and smacked on the glass.  It left a bloody print.  Cillian tried to lean over Sam to see better, but the frightened policeman pushed him back.

“They could be hurt,” Cillian justified, trying to push forward again.

“No.”  Sam continued to hold him back.

A second bloody hand joined the first and they began hammering on the glass window.  Thump-thump thump-thump thump thump thump thumpthumpthumpthump.  Then they disappeared and started pulling on the handle, over and over again, as if the twentieth time it would suddenly be unlocked.  The shriek of rage and frustration that followed caused Cillian to reconsider his curiosity and sit back in his seat.

All sound suddenly stopped.  The policeman and the fireman sat perfectly still, staring at the door.  Neither of them even breathed.

Another shriek pierced the quiet of the rig’s cab and a blood-covered boy threw himself into the side window.  Both men jumped, Sam nearly landing in Cillian’s lap.  Everything went silent again.  Cillian realized he was near the other window and quickly moved away from it on instinct, pushing a reluctant Sam closer to the passenger door.  He looked out into the side mirror and saw a girl walking up alongside the truck.  She was clearly lost and confused, tears running down her face, ruining her black Gothic makeup.  Or making it better, who knew with these kids.

Cillian knew he should warn her about the crazy guy on the other side of the truck, but he couldn't move.  He didn’t dare open the door or even crack the window.  He was having enough trouble remembering to take in oxygen.  He watched the girl pass right under him.  As she reached the front of the truck, she looked around hesitantly, never noticing Cillian and Sam sitting in it.  The girl then began to make her way toward the crowds in the distance.  The men watched her progress in silence, hoping she would make it.

The blood-soaked boy thought otherwise.

He ran out after the girl, screaming.  She turned around just in time for the boy to land both his feet onto her stomach.  She hit the ground hard, her head bouncing once off the dirt and grass.  The boy sat on her, clawing and biting at her chest.  There was blood, and she screamed, but Cillian still couldn’t move to help.  The girl’s screams reached a high when the boy pulled what looked like her
collarbone right out of her chest with his teeth.  He then grabbed it with his hands and stabbed it into the bloody hole, silencing her pain.

He then turned his attention back to the truck.

The boy was now covered in even more blood as he ran back at the fire truck.  He jumped onto the wide front bumper and began beating on the windshield with the girl’s collarbone.  Sam starting screaming when the windshield cracked.

“Shoot him!”  Cillian was pressing himself into his seat.

“What?”  Sam had forgotten about his pistol.

“Shoot the fucker!  Self defence!”  The crack got bigger.

Sam tried to get out his pistol, but he fumbled with it.  When the crack got larger still, he dropped the gun on the floor.  Cillian scooped it up.  He had talked to enough cops to know how to turn the safety off and did so now.  He pointed the gun at the boy and fired.

Part of the windshield smashed out.  The bullet passed through the attacker’s shoulder, throwing him off balance and off the bumper.

“You got him!” Sam actually cheered.

It was a short-lived moment as the boy reappeared quickly.  He jammed the bone into the bullet hole in the windshield and started to pry it bigger.

“Shoot him again!”  The cop was clearly torn between keeping his eyes on the boy and turning to climb into the back seat.

Cillian once again pointed the gun and fired.  This time he missed.

“Christ!”  It seemed Sam finally decided he’d feel better in the back seat and climbed over.

Cillian fired off another shot.  He hit the boy again, but this time, it just seemed to pass through his chest
as if it was nothing.  And the hole in the windshield just got larger with every shot.  The boy started to use his hands to try and get in, peeling away the safety glass and causing deep wounds to his fingers.

“Stay the fuck down!” Cillian screamed at him.  He put the gun right up against the windshield where the boy’s head was and pulled the trigger.  Blood and brains splattered out behind him as the boy dropped.  His arm got caught in the windshield causing him to hang down the front of the rig like a gruesome hood-ornament, the
collarbone still loosely clutched in his hand.

Cillian and Sam sat in silence, waiting for something else to happen.  Nothing did.

“Is he dead?” Sam whispered, fearing his voice would set off some terrible reaction.

“I shot him in the head.”  Cillian didn’t bother to whisper and the loudness of his voice shocked him.  “I shot him, in the head.”  Cillian looked at the gun in his hand.  He tossed it onto the passenger seat
as if it had suddenly become red hot and then absentmindedly wiped his hands on his shirt.  It was a tool of death.

“What about the girl?”  Sam leaned forward, trying to see out the unbroken half of the windshield.

“She had her collar bone stabbed into her heart,” Cillian snapped at him.  “I’m pretty fucking sure she’s pretty fucking dead.”

“I’m not that sure.”  Sam pointed out the window.

Cillian turned and looked.  The girl was trying to get up, her one arm hanging limp and useless.  Somehow, she managed to get to her feet and started looking around.

“What the hell?”  Cillian leaned forward as if moving slightly closer would dispel the illusion.

“I told you man.”  Sam leaned back, his voice rising to a higher pitch, “I told you they get back up.”

The girl looked at the fire truck.  Without
warning, she ran at it.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”  Sam disappeared in the back seat, hiding.

The girl jumped up on the bumper and pulled the dead boy out of the broken window with her one arm.  The moment he was clear, she started trying to get in through the same hole.  Unlike the boy, she was disturbingly silent, which meant that Cillian could easily hear Sam whimpering in the back.

“Goddamnit!”  Cillian got his
heavily booted foot up and kicked the girl in the face as she tried to climb in through the windshield.  She got knocked off the bumper but recovered quickly and came right back.  Cillian scrambled for the gun he so heedlessly tossed away, not remembering why he would have done that.  Before he could grab it, the girl was coming in again.  He tried to kick her once more, but because of the awkward angle, he missed.  The girl grabbed his leg with her good arm and started gnawing on his boot.  The heavy material that caused him so much discomfort in the day’s heat now protected him.  While she was distracted, Cillian managed to reach the gun.

“I hate this shit!  You mother fucker!”  The firefighter pointed the gun at the side of the girl’s head.  She turned to bite his hand and Cillian shot her full on in the face.  There was more blood and brains, only this time they splattered the inside of the vehicle.

Cillian yelled in frustration and kicked the limp body out the window.  It collapsed with a thump on top of the other one.  Still furious, Cillian sat up and looked in the backseat.  Sam was still cowering back there.

“You... are officially...  the
worst
cop... I have EVER MET!”  Cillian flicked the safety back on and threw the pistol at Sam’s head.

“Are they gone?” Sam whispered as he sat up, cradling the pistol to his chest.

“I don’t know, maybe they’ll decide to get back up and attack again.”  Cillian threw his arms up.  “Hand me that coat will you?”  He reached over the backseat for a firefighter’s jacket.

“This one?”  Sam picked it up and handed it to him.  “What do you want it for?”

“I need something to wipe away the grey matter and there’s nothing else inside the truck.”  He started using the outside of the jacket to clear gore off the steering wheel and the inside of the windshield.

“Grey matter?  You mean brains?”

“Of course I mean brains.  Calling it grey matter just makes it easier to deal with,” Cillian clenched his teeth.  This was not part of his job description.  Cops carried guns.  Cops were supposed to shoot people if shooting had to be done.  Firefighters were only supposed to save people.  Cillian was running on autopilot, doing his best not to think about it.

“Here, these should help.”  Sam handed some firefighter’s gloves up to Cillian.

Cillian put on the gloves and wiped away the rest of the chunks.  “You know, you could also help.”  He then started breaking out the rest of the broken windshield on the passenger side.

“Why are you breaking that out?”  The cowardly cop shrank back into the seat again.

“Because then I’ll be able to see better when we drive out of here.”  When Cillian finished breaking out the glass, he put his jacket down on the bloody driver’s seat, clean side up, and sat on it.  He tried to clean the glass in front of him some more, but just ended up smearing the blood around.  Only partial visibility was achieved.

“I thought you didn’t want to drive through that crowd.”  Sam started to climb into the passenger seat again.

Cillian pushed him back, the blood on his gloves leaving a mark on Sam’s chest.  “I’m not going through them.  You’ll want to stay back there.”

“But they’re between us and all the exits.”  Sam put on a seat belt.  “Even the vehicle entrance is clogged.”

“We’re not going through an entrance.”  As he turned the keys that had been left in the ignition, the truck started up with a rumble.  Cillian let out a small sigh of relief that it didn’t have any engine problems.