Dead City. Joe Mckinney

shots as his arm described a sloppy arc through the air.

      He wasn’t aiming. I don’t think he was even capable of that. I don’t even think he was trying to fire.

      It looked more like sympathetic trigger-pull to me. The fingers of his hand clutched for us, and because they were wrapped around the trigger, the gun went off.

      But none of that went through my mind at the time—at least, not in any organized way.

      When I threw my arms over my head and ducked down next to Carlos, I was operating out of pure fear. I pushed and carried him in the opposite direction, yelling for him to move as we ran.

      Behind us, Moraga fired again, and this time the shots were closer, kicking up little umbrellas of dirt at our feet.

      He kept firing until the magazine was empty and the slide locked back in the empty position.

      And then he quickened his pace.

      I stared back at him in disbelief. His right leg was bent slightly outwards at an awful angle, obviously broken, giving his gait an up-and-down rolling motion.

      It slowed him down, but not by much. Between carrying Carlos and my own exhaustion it was hard to keep ahead of him.

      He chased us past the playground equipment and out into the parking lot and never fell more than twenty steps behind us.

      “Fucking SWAT,” I panted. “The bastard’s a zombie and he’s still in better shape than me.”

      “Get to those doors,” Carlos said.

      He meant a pair of green metal gym doors at the other side of the parking lot. I didn’t see any other way to get away so I did what he said.

      As we reached the doors I could hear Moraga coming up behind us. The dragging slide of his footsteps mingled with the rattling of his keys and when I reached for the handle I could have sworn he was right on top of us.

      I grabbed the door and pulled. It wouldn’t give. I tried the other door. It wouldn’t give, either.

      “Locked.”

      “Hurry up.”

      “It’s locked.”

      “Here he comes.”

      I turned just in time to see Moraga drag himself up the curb and step into the grass.

      “Shoot him.”

      I pointed my gun at him and I wanted to pull the trigger. I wanted to, but couldn’t.

      Moraga never flinched. He just kept hobbling toward us and I stood there, frozen by a mental block that wouldn’t let me shoot a cop.

      Then I heard the sudden explosion of a pistol shot next to my ear.

      I flinched out of the way and fell to one knee. The ringing in my ear was fierce.

      Moraga stopped just in front of me and teetered backwards on his heels. He fell, landing in a pile on the grass, his legs tucked under his body like a child sleeping in the grass.

      I looked back at Carlos and saw him panting heavily, his Glock still pointed at the space where Moraga had been standing.

      “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said.

      “I couldn’t.”

      “Why the hell not?”

      “He’s a cop.”

      “Not any more. Jesus. You need to stop being so fucking sentimental and start worrying about saving your own ass.”

      After that, he broke down into a violent coughing fit, worn out by the effort it took to yell at me.

      In between his coughs he vomited hard, and when he looked up at me his crimson eyes were a watery snapshot of hell. His face was pale and wet with sweat and tears. In that moment I knew he was dying. He was fighting it bravely, but he had already admitted as much to himself. Death was coming for him, and he was looking it in the eye.

      “We need to keep going,” I said.

      “Get bent.”

      “Let’s get inside, Carlos. Please.”

      “I said leave me the fuck alone. I don’t want your—”

      The pained look melted from his face and changed to that of a professional policeman once again. I saw it happen almost instantly.

      His eyes narrowed to a point just over my shoulder, and he said, “Behind you.”

      I turned and looked across the parking lot.

      At first I only saw five zombies shambling toward us. Then eight. Then more than I could count. There had to be a hundred of them or more in a narrowing half circle around us.

      Carlos fell back against the doors of the gym and slid down to the ground. He sat there looking around us and coughed.

      “You’ve got to help me,” I said, trying to pick him up. “Come on. We’ve got to go.”

      “There’s nowhere to go. You go if you want to.”

      I tried to lift him again, but he wouldn’t let me. “Please get up. Come on.”

      He wouldn’t even look at me.

      “You son of a bitch. I’m not gonna die here. Get up.”

      I pulled him up from his shoulder, but couldn’t hold him. He slipped back down and fell over to one side.

      “Get up.”

      The zombies behind me were getting closer. I could hear their feet scraping along the pavement. They all moved at different speeds, some of them closing in faster than others depending on their injuries. The ones with their legs intact were the fastest.

      One of them stepped over the curb to my left and I shot her.

      After that I just started firing at any of them that got too close. By the time I fired through all three of my magazines there were piles of dead bodies all around us, but there were still a lot more of them closing in on us.

      “I’m out,” I said over my shoulder. I holstered my gun and pulled out my baton.

      I took a deep breath and waited, watching the crowd for the best place to strike. I knew the first move would be the most important. If I read the crowd wrong and let them get between Carlos and me, there’d be no way to double back and keep them off him.

      It had to be right the first time.

      But before I got a chance to move, I heard the crack of a rifle shot and the whistle of the bullet as it went by my head.

      I moved left and spun around in a panic, and saw Carlos still seated against the door. But now he had Moraga’s AR-15. Somehow he found the energy to lift Moraga’s corpse and remove the rifle. He had his knees up in front of his chest, and the barrel of the AR-15 supported between them. His left arm hung uselessly by his side, but he still managed to fire with the right.

      He cleared out the ten or so zombies closest to us, and then started shooting at the next wave. Even in his condition, he still managed to place kill shots at thirty yards.

      When he fired his last round, he let the rifle slip from his hand.

      I ran over to Moraga and searched him for more AR magazines, but all he had were two Glock magazines. I grabbed them both and went back to Carlos.

      “You have to get up. Come on.”

      He muttered something, but I couldn’t make it out.

      “Come on,” I said, begging him. “Get up.”

      He blinked at me, but after a moment he let me help him up.

      We moved around the front side of the building, past long rows of neatly cut hedges, and up to the front door. It was an older school, built in the fifties, and the front steps were steep. I looked