Dead City. Joe Mckinney

haze about them.

      Chris and I turned our flashlights and guns on them at the same time. The beams from our flashlights raked across their faces and I counted six people.

      Chris shouted, “Stop! Police!”

      They didn’t respond—at first. Then they staggered in our direction.

      “Stop! Let me see your hands!”

      I keyed my radio. “52-70, we have six at gunpoint!”

      “Ten-four,” the dispatcher said, her voice glassy smooth and calm. “52-60, 52-62, 52-72, start that way. Make it Code Three.”

      I heard the melodic cling clang cling clang of my radio’s emergency tone going off and after that I stopped listening to it. All of my attention was focused on the problem in front of us.

      The street lamps threw an uneven light across the yards, creating deep pockets of shadows between the trees. As the group of drunks moved toward us, I kept losing them in the shadows, and it wasn’t until they were up close that I really got a good look at them.

      Chris and I both backed away, guns and flashlights at the ready. I caught sight of a man as he moved across my beam, and in the split second I had the light on him I could tell his face was all cut up. His cheeks had the swollen, lumpy look of someone who has just lost a fight, and there was a gory mixture of fresh and dry blood on the side of his neck. His eyes were clouded over with a milky white film, like a dead man’s.

      He moved more quickly than the others, but still with that clumsy, falling gait of someone who seemed to have forgotten how to walk. He didn’t register the gun pointed at his face, and he didn’t blink or look away or avert his eyes, even though I had my flashlight shining right in his face.

      It looked like he didn’t even see it.

      “Get down on the ground!” I yelled at him, keeping the beam on his face. “Do it now!”

      If he heard me at all, he gave no sign of it. I was yelling at a blank slate.

      “Spray!” I yelled over my shoulder. That was for Chris’s benefit. When the pepper spray gets in the air, you can go down coughing even if you don’t get hit by it directly.

      I holstered my Glock and came up with my canister of pepper spray.

      “Get down on the ground!”

      When he kept coming, I squeezed my finger over the trigger and waited for him to get in range. Pepper spray works best inside of three or four yards.

      As he got closer he raised his hands to grab me. I pointed the canister at his face and pulled the trigger, giving him a tight, one-second burst and then backing away, just like in training.

      Pepper spray takes a split second to do its damage. When people get hit with it, they usually stop, not hurt, but stunned, for just a moment, and then fall to the ground screaming, clawing at their eyes, and yelling like mad because that stuff fucking burns.

      But the guy I sprayed didn’t even skip a beat. He kept coming, and for a second I wondered if I missed or if he blocked the spray with his hands somehow. I let him get close again and then pumped another short one-second burst at his face.

      I got it in his eyes. I was sure I got him in the eyes. But nothing happened. He didn’t even blink. He opened his mouth and the skin around his neck tightened, but no sound came out.

      There’s enough spray in one canister for six one-second bursts. When I hit him with it again, I got in close and emptied the rest of the pepper spray right into his face.

      I threw the empty canister to the side as I stepped back and stared at the man in amazement. I was riding a wave of adrenaline, and I had to force myself not to charge him and take him down with my bare hands. The air was thick with spray and I didn’t want to get incapacitated by it.

      Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered the pepper spray course they taught us at the Academy. They said three percent of the population is naturally immune to the effects of the spray, but I had never actually seen anybody from that three percent.

      The only other people I ever heard of who could shake it off like my guy was doing were meth freaks, and he wasn’t moving like a meth freak.

      As I backed up I heard Chris yell. I looked over at him and saw that the plump woman in the spandex had somehow managed to get right on top of him. I was surprised to see him go down. He wasn’t big or anything, but he was in good shape.

      She was clawing at him. Her fingernails raked across his face, cutting him, and then suddenly she knocked the gun out of his hand.

      He slapped at her with his flashlight, but couldn’t break away completely. Their arms were caught up in each other.

      He landed a good jab with the butt of his flashlight and backed away. Then I heard the sharp metal on metal snap of his baton as he extended it and cocked it back over his shoulder.

      He swung it down on her knee sharply, and then again, punctuating the second stroke with the sickening crunch of broken bones.

      The woman’s whole body reeled from his blows, but she didn’t cry out and she didn’t go down.

      He hit her again and again, moving around her, keeping her at arm’s length and striking her legs when she got too close, but no matter how hard he hit her, she wouldn’t go down.

      “What the hell!” he yelled. They were moving around each other in a strange, clumsy type of dance, Chris keeping the beat with his baton on her legs. “Why won’t she go down?”

      But I couldn’t help him. I had my own problems to worry about.

      The man I just pepper-sprayed was still reaching for me. He put out a mangled hand and I dodged underneath it. Before he could turn around, I kicked the back of his knee and pushed him down.

      He didn’t even try to break his fall. Didn’t put his hands out or anything.

      In the distance I could hear sirens and the uneven rise and fall of the roaring engines, and I knew help was getting close. But there were more people gathering around us now, and as I turned slightly I thought I recognized the people from across the street we had seen as we came in.

      That’s when Chris went down.

      All his attention was focused on the woman, and he never saw the two men who grabbed him from his right side.

      I saw one of them bite him and Chris screamed. He spun around frantically, knocking their hands and faces away as he landed on the ground.

      They reached for him and he rolled away. He jumped to his feet with his gun in his hand and fired two quick shots at the man who bit him, nailing him squarely in the chest.

      The sound broke the air, but I was the only one who flinched. No one else in the yard even registered the shots.

      The man he hit staggered backwards, knocked straight up by the force of the impact, but he didn’t fall.

      I watched him shift his weight from one foot to the other in a clumsy, teetering dance and then start to walk forward again.

      Chris fell backwards, clutching his neck, the blood already jetting between his fingers. Even as he fell he kept his gun leveled at the man.

      I ran over to him and pulled him back.

      “He fucking bit me!” Chris shouted.

      I put Chris behind me and yelled at the man he had just shot. “Stop! Don’t you fucking move!”

      I had my gun barrel trained on his chest and still he kept coming.

      I couldn’t help but look at his face. There was nothing behind it, like one of those zombies in the movies. His gaze fell on me, but I knew somehow he wasn’t looking at me. There was no cognition, no intelligence in his eyes. They were clouded over, a mystery.

      Chris and I backed into the street, careful to keep our distance.

      “Shotguns!”