frame.
“Murderer, huh? Looked more like a zombie to me.” The officer said. Max turned his head towards her. She was standing above him with an outstretched hand. He grabbed it. It was warm but not sweaty. Must be the training. Regardless, it made him feel a little safer. She pulled Max to his feet.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I think most of this blood is someone else’s. What took you so long?”
“Hey, count yourself lucky, we’ve been dealing with these problems all morning. Had I not been on my way back to the station when I got the call you would have been on your own.”
She grabbed the radio from her belt and spoke into it. “Officer Stewart to HQ.” They both waited for a response.
“Officer Stewart to HQ.”
As they listened to the silence on the radio Max took survey of Officer Stewart. She looked to be in her mid twenties and stood a little over five and a half feet tall. She wore the standard Denver Police uniform, dark blue, with a black leather belt housing multiple items; handcuffs, pepper spray, a club, her side arm. Her left forearm was wrapped with a bandage. She wore no hat but her hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail. 'To Serve and Protect' read a small gold pin above her badge. Max thought that she was surprisingly cute for a cop.
“Are there others like him wandering around here?” Stewart asked as she pointed at the feet sticking out the doorway.
“Yeah, two, or possibly three now, that I know of.”
“What about normal people, any of those left in here?”
Normal? That sounded funny. Max guessed that Steve could pass as normal.
“Ah, yes, one more, Steve, back the other way. But that’s all I’ve seen this morning.”
“Actually, I’m right here.” Steve said as he crept from an office entrance.
Just how long had Steve been there? Had he witnessed the entire thing and made no attempt to help him? Max wouldn’t put it past Steve to do a thing like that. It seemed unimaginable but he guessed that some people would do anything to protect themselves. Max retrieved his bat and looked at Steve and Officer Stewart, “What do we do now?”
Chapter 4
“For starters lets see if we can block most of the doors, at least we need to push furniture up against them and make it hard for the lumbering undead to get into the building. Then we round up any survivors, then we finish off any trapped undead, clearing the building room by room.” Said Stewart.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa there little lady.” said Steve raising his hands in front of him as he spoke, “Undead? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Alright tough guy, listen and listen carefully. All morning we’ve been getting calls where people are being attacked, um, no, more like eaten by other people. There were a few calls as early as last night. Some pizza delivery guy chowed a family of four. I’ve personally taken out nine of the things so far, including that guy in the men’s room. Now, if I were you, I would call my friends and family and tell them to start boarding up their window and…”
“Oh shit, I gotta call my wife.” Max said as he fumbled for his cell phone. Once he got it out and started a call back to his home, he moved down the corridor a little to get away from Steve and Officer Stewarts' arguing, which was growing quite heated. “C’mon, c’mon, pick up honey, pick it up!”
“Hello?” a sleepy voice said on the other end of the line.
“Sarah! Sarah! Are you okay baby?”asked Max.
“Okay? Okay? Max what are you talking about, of course I am fine. What has happened? What is wrong?”
Standing there in blood coated clothing that was hardening around his body like an eggshell, Max really didn’t know where to begin.
“Sarah, things have gone wrong, there are some really bad people out running around the city and I want you and the kids to stay safe. In fact I want you to stay more than safe. Barricade the back door and the doors from the garage, move tables and chairs in front of them. Leave the front door locked and dead bolted, if I can get home I will come to the front door. Then I want you to..”
“Max, Max, stop it Max! What are you talking about? Bad people? What bad people? Terrorists? In Denver? Why would they come for me? Is it your job?”
”No, no honey, nothing like that okay, worse in a way, they won’t come for you….Hold on a sec honey… Hey Steve! Stewart! Keep it down you wanna just tell everything in hearing distance we are here? Go move the furniture in the lobby in front of the doors, okay, but stop yelling! Sorry hon, no I don’t have time to tell you everything, but I guess there are some really bad people running around and there could be a lot of them from what I just heard. You need to take the kids and hide up in the attic, bring water, food, blankets, everything. Get the porta-potty I use for camping out of the garage and move it up there if you can do it. You have to promise me you will stay there no matter what you hear in the house, if everything is quiet you can probably come down to use the bathroom when you need to. Oh, fill up the tub with water and the sinks and any containers we have laying around too.”
“Max, I am looking out the drapes, there are some people out there walking around really slow, like they are on drugs or something.”
A chill went up Max’s spine, “Honey, don’t let them see you, the uh, druggies are very, very violent! Slow but violent, like, um, zombies. And they will kill you and the kids if you let them see you!” Max was practically screaming into the phone now, “Take your cell phone up into the attic the zo..druggies have lower coordination when they are..high and cannot climb things really well.”
“Max you are scaring me, you're scared too, aren't you? I will do it, you just get someplace safe, come home if you can. I will get the kids up into the attic right now and wait for you, are you coming home right now?”
“As soon as I can baby, as soon as I can.”
“Max” said Sarah with near hysteria in her voice, “Max are you going to be okay?”
“Relax baby, relax, I have a police officer here with me, she’ll take care of me, I am more worried about you. I don’t know what’s happening in the rest of the city but from what I hear, it’s not good. That’s why I want you to get the kids, some food and some water up into the attic. Just do it okay? Honey, one more thing.”
“No.” Max could tell Sarah was still crying, but her voice was firm.
“Aw honey, c’mon you gotta do it, it will make me feel better just know you have it with you.”
Years before Max had inherited a German Lugar his grandfather brought home from his years of service in world war II, coming from a family that owned guns Max knew how to care for them and considered the Lugar more of an investment than a home protection device. Sarah, on the other hand, used to have a younger brother. When he was eleven he went over to a friend’s house to play and never came home. Playing that day involved the handgun collection of his friend’s father and in a day and age where safety locks were not yet mainstream his friend had shot and killed her brother. The trauma of losing her brother provoked in Sarah a hatred of guns that was beyond illogical. When Max inherited his grandfather’s gun, Sarah had taken the kids to a hotel for three nights, eventually she returned home when Max had installed a gun safe to hold the gun, a wall safe to hold the ammo and a child safety lock with two keys, one normally kept in a safety deposit box at the bank, and one on Max’s key chain. Sarah knew the combination to both safes and as they had recently decided to close their safety deposit box the second key to the gun lock was now in the same safe as the gun’s ammunition.
“I won’t Max. Look, you know I don’t even know how to fire it, it won’t do me any good anyway and I will feel like I am leaving a rattlesnake laying around no matter where I put it. I will grab a bat from Nick’s room and that will have to do. Any druggies managing to get up into the attic will have to contend with an aluminum bat to the head. And if you still need the gun you can get it when you get home.”
“Okay, okay, I would just feel better if you had it with you. Anyone coming in and not yelling your name, you
