Dead City. Joe Mckinney

a boy or a girl. “What is he, about a year old now?”

      “Nine months,” he said, but I think he knew what was really on my mind. I’m sure my face showed it plain enough. “Have you called your wife yet?”

      I shook my head. “I can’t find my cell phone.”

      “Me either. It was here on my gun belt, but it looks like it’s gone now.” He felt around his belt without looking at it. “Looks like my baton’s gone, too.”

      “We need a car. We should get you to a hospital.”

      “A car, yes. Hospital, no.”

      “You’re hurt.”

      “And I’m sure bunches of other people are too. Imagine what the hospitals are going to be like. Everybody who’s injured is gonna head to a hospital. How long do you figure before the hospitals are all overrun with those zombie things?”

      “I hadn’t thought of that.”

      “We need to get to a fire station. They have medics there. Besides, whenever the radio system goes down, we’re supposed to head to the nearest fire station. The rest of the shift is probably headed there now.”

      While he was talking, I watched the street to the west of us. Through the flickering strobe lights I could see zombies moving down the hill. Coming our way.

      “Carlos,” I said. “We need to leave.”

      “We need a car.”

      “Well, we’re not going that way.” I pointed up the hill where there were plenty of cars but absolutely no way of getting one.

      He turned to see where I was pointing, and then hung his head. “Crap, Eddie. I don’t have many bullets left.”

      “Save them. We’re not gonna shoot if we don’t have to.”

      Chapter 5

      The crowd coming down from the top of the hill grew steadily larger. To me, they looked like streams of dark water overflowing an embankment, coming downhill without direction, following the path of least resistance. They seemed driven only by a vague impulse to keep moving.

      “Got any ideas?” Carlos asked.

      “You’re the senior man. You tell me.”

      “I’m not gonna be able to make it very far. It’s my head. I feel really dizzy. It hurts.”

      I knew he was hurting. There was pain in his voice, even though he tried to force it down.

      “There’s the elementary school. Can you make that?”

      “Yeah,” he said, but he sounded doubtful. “We ought to avoid any kind of place where a crowd might gather.”

      “School let out at three.”

      He nodded, and together we started toward the school, his arm over my shoulder.

      Feeling his dead weight on my shoulders, I was stunned by how bad he looked. His bite was serious, there was no doubting that, but even so, I thought, there was no way it should be tearing him up like it was doing. The piss yellow in his eyes was starting to deepen to a dark crimson, and he was coughing, hacking up huge wads of black phlegm that stank horribly. His whole body shook each time he coughed. He was slick to the touch too. From sweat. Every step was a labor, a painful, gut-wrenching labor, and it said something about the inner strength of the man that he was able to walk as fast as he did.

      Together we made it past the bodies and the trash in the street and all the way to the end of the block, where the slope of the street flattened out and a wall of trees marked the back ring of the cul-de-sac.

      The edge of the school’s property was protected by a seven-foot-high hurricane fence.

      I climbed up first and then reached down for Carlos.

      He pulled most of his own weight over, which was lucky. I doubt I could have carried him.

      He did so well coming over that I let him come down the other side by himself. Bad idea. He lost his grip near the top of the fence and fell, landing on his side so hard it knocked the wind out of him.

      “Are you okay?” I asked, kneeling down next to him. I offered him a hand up.

      He pushed it away, but didn’t move to get up. He stayed there on his hands and knees, head bent down, trying to catch his breath.

      “Why do people always say that?”

      “What?”

      “Why do people always say, ‘Are you okay?’ after someone falls and busts their ass? I mean, look at me. Do I fucking look okay?”

      I didn’t answer him.

      “Forget it,” he said. “Just help me up.”

      I helped him to his feet and balanced him there. He was swaying badly. Off toward the school the flood-lights on the corners of the building lit up the playground and the parking lot beyond it.

      I looked over the field separating us from the buildings and then at Carlos.

      “We’ve still got some walking to do. Can you make it?”

      “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

      The closest building to us was the gym, and we headed that way. Halfway across a field where years of kickball had worn dirt lanes into the grass, Carlos stopped walking and bent over. He vomited all over his boots, and kept on vomiting. Long after I was sure he couldn’t have anything left inside him, he was still vomiting.

      It stank.

      But finally, it stopped, and he stood up again.

      Before I could say anything he looked up at me and said, “Don’t you dare ask if I’m okay.”

      I shrugged.

      “It feels like I’ve got the flu,” he said. “My back is fucking killing me.”

      “When we get inside maybe we ought to head to the nurse’s office first. Maybe there’s something there we can—”

      I stopped myself midsentence. Carlos looked up at me.

      “What is it?” he asked.

      “I thought I heard something.”

      “What?”

      “Shhh.”

      It sounded like keys rattling. I turned my flashlight on the playground and swept it with the beam. It didn’t look like there was anything there, but it was hard to be sure because the beam didn’t penetrate very far into the dark.

      I heard the noise again.

      “What is that?”

      And then I saw one of our SWAT officers named Anthony Moraga walking between the monkey bars and the seesaws. He wore a black tactical uniform, different from the French-blue patrol uniforms Carlos and I were wearing. He had his Glock in his hand and an AR-15 slung over his shoulder. It looked like he was walking with a bad limp.

      “Tony,” I said to him, and then just as quickly wished I hadn’t.

      He slowly turned to face us, and even before I could see the vacancy in his eyes I knew he was one of those things. A zombie.

      “Why did you do that?” Carlos said.

      “I don’t know. Come on.” I tried to pull Carlos along with me, but he wouldn’t move.

      “Just shoot him,” he said.

      I raised my gun to fire at Moraga. Every part of me rebelled against the act of shooting a fellow cop—even one who had been so horribly changed. It was almost impossible to pull the trigger.

      I hesitated.

      Waited too long.

      Moraga