OMG CRACKATTACK
Nobody's reading this, but I'm having fun writing it, sooo..
Yeah, jog on...wankers. :P
Nicholas brought Liam back to his place. It wasn’t anything special, just a two-bedroom cottage not far from the village, set along a row of similar houses. Danny lived down the street in one direction, and Doris and Tony in the other.
Being the overly-perceptive and equally insightful sociology major he was, Nicholas could sense a serious fissure just beneath Liam’s cool exterior, and as an officer in a similar leadership position, he knew how important it was for the two of them to keep up appearances for their teams.
Nicholas fixed tea while Liam sat at the kitchen table, engaging the salt and pepper shakers in some sort of odd battle. They didn’t speak. As a matter of fact, Liam seemed completely lost in his own thoughts, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he willed the dispensers to do his bidding. Nicholas stood by the stove, studying his old partner and boss, until the kettle began to whistle.
“Fuck,” Liam shouted, leaping out of his seat. Nicholas froze, giving him a questioning look, as Liam gave him the foulest glare he’d ever received, sinking back into his seat and melting against the table, as if every bone in his body were suddenly made of putty.
“I’ve never known you to curse, Chief,” Nicholas remarked, grabbing a hand towel and lifting the kettle from the heat, bringing it over to the table, “Nor have I known you to be so high-strung. Care to discuss?”
“Nicholas,” Liam sighed, rubbing his face and sighing.
“Chief,” Nicholas reprimanded gently.
“Nick,” Liam teased.
“Liam,” Nicholas shot back.
“You know, I’ve never known anyone to make my name sound as dirty as you can,” Liam laughed.
“And I’ve never known anyone to dodge questions so eloquently,” Nicholas replied, the smile dropping from Liam’s face immediately. “Now…Liam…I need to know what happened in London. All of it.”
“What d’you mean he’s staying here?” Wainwright hollered, making a rude gesture toward the ceiling of the station, though his intended target actually lay somewhere toward the southern side of the building.
“What else could we do?” Kels shot back, Adrian holding his arms to keep him from taking a swing at the Sandfordians. “Leave him? Should we have just left him, then?”
“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” Tony growled, taking up with Wainwright, staring the Met cops down. “You’re putting everyone in danger! The village, Gloucestershire…everyone!”
“He’s locked up,” Adrian replied, “He can’t hurt anyone.”
“It doesn’ matt’r!” Galen whined. “It doesn’ matt’r if ‘e can’ ‘urt no-one raigh now, it only matt’rs for when ‘e gets out.”
“Who’s to say he will?” Gregory asked, nonchalant as he was about all things. “Maybe he’ll just die in there…”
“Well, maybe he should do his dying somewhere else,” Cassie said bitterly. “Somewhere where my mum and dad don’t have to deal with it-”
“Now c’mon, then,” Russell cut in, stepping between the two warring groups. “There’s no need for any o’this, really, s’long as ‘e stays locked an’ boxed, e’s naigh a worry.”
“Am I the only one who wants to push him down something?” Tony grumbled.
“He should be shot,” Grace said darkly.
“Here, here,” Wainwright smirked.
“No,” Kincaid interrupted as Cartwright tried for high-fives, “I meant Wakeman.”
“GRACE!” Kels and Adrian shouted, but Duncan’s body language showed he agreed with her.
“Detective Wakeman should be killed,” Wainwright said solemnly, surprised to find a friend in a woman he was already silently calling Princess Bitch, “Before he can infect anyone else.”
“I remember…children,” Liam muttered, tipping his tea cup idly in his hands, watching the dark liquid as the vessel rolled around it, one accommodating the other so completely. “We were…escorting them out of the city, not just them, but as many people as we could find, really. They had all been put together by their teachers though, kept together, I guess so they could manage them, or so their parents could find them later, maybe.
“There were gun shots everywhere, all in the distance, all around us. Burning cars, piles of them, from people crashing, avoiding the infected, trying to run from them. Bodies, too. The whole city smelled of burning flesh and blood. People were throwing up everywhere, pitching over, falling in it, and the smell…God, the smell!
“There was so much chaos over the radio, we didn’t hear the warning when it came down: A rush of infected, coming our way, too many and not enough bullets. They crested over a firewall, which I swear was made entirely out of parts: Car parts, body parts, junk parts, gun parts, computer parts, tire parts, animal parts, heads and chests and faces, faces staring out of this pile, all burning. Twenty or so infected just rushed over it, like it was nothing, and burning as they came screaming down on us.”
Liam was silent for a moment, looking pointedly at his tea, which he set down heavily in the saucer, as if it weighed a thousand pounds. Nicholas let him sit for a moment, watching his breathing, trying to see his expression, to gage what capacity Liam had to continue. It would be better for him to get it out, really…
“Go on,” Nicholas prompted after a moment, his fingers wrapped tightly around his own teacup, facing Liam directly across the table.
“…Everyone…panicked,” Liam managed, looking up sharply at Nicholas, his red-rimmed eyes and quivering lips showing his lack of composure.
“A little boy, half my height, all skin and bones, like this baby bird I found as a boy…He grabbed me about the waist immediately, as if I were life itself, and started to cry so hard I swear he soaked my hip straight through. I just…stood there, rooted, watching what I really thought was my own death come pelting at me.
“I remember the smell of them, all burning hair and peeling flesh, boiling blood, pouring it out as they jumped on top of people. One woman, I guess she was a teacher, because the boy knew her, she was burning alive as a man pinned her down and…bit into her throat…didn’t kill her straight away. It was like watching a snake, he just kept his jaw locked, chewing away through her windpipe, and you knew he’d gotten there finally when she stopped screaming, but they were both burned to death before she…
“They came at me then, and the next thing I knew, well…D’you remember Kenneth?”
“Inspector Kincaid?” Nicholas replied after a moment. He’d been listening so intently, he’d almost forgotten he was supposed to be actively participating as well. He gathered his scruples and said simply, “Yes, of course.”
“Well, he saved my life, believe it or not,” Liam managed to laugh. “Stepped out in front of me, caught a screamer to the chest, hit the ground hard enough to break his hip. He was too old, supposed to retire in a month, what with Grace-”
“I heard there was a…relationship,” Nicholas cut in, putting on his protocol hat and his unnerving, professional grimace.
“Jog on, you wanker,” Liam snorted. “Kenneth was married. Grace is his only kid. He was a good man, even if he did stick you out in Nowhere, even if everyone thought he was a pratt. He saved my life.
“Really, though, he was trying to save the boy. He’d always wanted a son, which explained the Daddy complex he took with some of the recruits, and why Gr-…
“He couldn’t get up was the trouble, too much pain, no leg support, and I was frozen like a statue, just watching. I remember hearing Wakeman behind me, screaming his head off, crying, begging Adrian off. He was going to shoot him in the street, like a dog, but Duncan wouldn’t have it, the sentimental sodd. All around me, people were dying, but it scared me shitless to think that officers were dying as well. We had guns, we had training, we had authority, and yet…
“The fugging bastard tore Kenneth’s arm clean off, flipped him on his stomach, punched him over and over in the back so hard his spine must have broken, from the way Ken screamed. More infected just kept coming, gun shots were going off, people were dropping, infected and not, and then Kenneth looked at me and said, ‘Get out,’ before the fucker…He grabbed his head under Ken’s jaw and ripped back, and…It made a popping sound…
“The kid was at the wrong level when the shot came. Before I knew it, the two of us were coated in blood, and Grace and Kels were closing in, firing like mad, and it nearly broke my heart, the look on Grace’s face. She just…stood there, looking down at her dad, all bled out on the pavement…
“And then the kid, he started screaming, and I finally realized that the blood from the infected’s head exploding, the blood that hit me in the chest, had to have taken him full in the face. He was infected, and I was the bloody fucking twat who’d let it happen, and as I stood there aching over it, there was this…flash of gun, and…the handle of the gun hit him just right, it went straight through his skull, dropped him so fast, it…Kids have a lot of blood in them, Nick.”
Nicholas stared. There were no sane words for the things that he’d just heard. He felt like somebody had trampled him, quartered him, and then walked away casually. London was…London was really gone, and all the people he knew along with it.
“The…the boy, he would have killed others,” Nicholas finally responded, remembering his analytical side, trying to soothe Liam’s damaged psyche. “You did the right thing, mate.”
“I didn’t do it,” Liam whimpered, fighting back tears. “Grace, she…The boy wasn’t actually sick yet, Nick. He might not have gotten sick. He might have been alright, just traumatized or something, but Grace, she, she just-”
“And you got attached,” Nicholas finished, his disapproving glower resurfacing in full. He knew what it was like to let down the people who loved you, to become human. Sandford was a practice in lowered expectations. But for Liam to attach himself to other officers again, after…
“Why are we watching him again?” Gregory huffed, peeking in at the semi-conscious detective for the third time in ten minutes. “I mean, he’s not going anywhere. They’re zombies, not ninja-zombies, y’know.”
Walker merely grunted in reply, nearly asleep where he sat just outside the vault-like doorway to the holding cells. He and Gregory had been given first detail, making sure there was no change in Randy Wakeman’s activity, and alerting the others if any occurred. It was tedious work, but necessary.
Downstairs, Turner was manning the front desk as usual, with Benji keeping him company. Turner would never admit it, but the whole situation had him spooked. Dr. Fell was patrolling the village like it was his job, several members of the citizenry already telephoning the police to report “an odd stranger hereabouts.”
Apparently, Liam’s assessment was pretty spot-on as far as Sandford was concerned; Russell was a fucking loon.
The rest of their numbers were divided somewhat strangely; Adrian and Duncan had been offered lodging at Danny’s, and also the promise of action flics, supposedly to numbed their minds for a bit. Kels begged off Tony’s request that he stay with his family, saying he’d stop by later after dropping by Nicholas’s to check on Liam. Doris graciously relinquished her extra bedroom to Grace, who had found herself an unwelcome follower in Cassie, and so all three lady-cops were having a girl’s night in, so-to-speak. The Andys were doing…whatever it was they did, ignoring the problems of the rest of the world, focusing on their own trifling reality.
But they all carried their radios on them, just in case, so if anything happened…
Something solid hit the inside of the cell door, making Gregory practically jump out of his skin. He glanced slowly toward Walker, sighing with exasperation when he saw the old man hadn’t stirred at all. Even Saxon was unmoved, his head on his paws, curled dutifully by his master’s feet, blinking dolefully at the young Constable before yawning and readjusting his position in preparation of a good sleep.
Gregory approached the cell door tentatively, sliding back the viewing grate, peering cautiously down into the half-lit little room. A large pile of ragged clothing was lying limp in the center of the space, twitching ever so slightly and whimpering; Randy Wakeman was awake, or at least experiencing whatever extent of the normal human lifecycle the infected underwent during times of rest. The lump grunted, scrambled at the floor, palms clapping against concrete, before Wakeman snarled and fell limp again.
“Oi, you,” Gregory snapped, the pile leaping to life, taking the form of a man, crouched low, eyes gleaming red. He was taken aback for a moment, but then realized the detective was on the other side of a two-inch-thick steel-reinforced door, and so fell into this comfortable logic like a man in a hammock. “Quiet down in there, you raging git.”
Before he knew what was what, one-hundred-eighty-three-pounds and two meters of disease-carrying Metropolitan detective launched at the door, crashing violently against metal, fists making an explosion of sound against the barrier, face turned sideways in a nearly comedic attempt to squeeze through the slim opening. Wakeman snarled, wretched, and began to slump down again, his fingers clawing desperately against the door in a final attempt to stay upright.
Having recoiled, Gregory now smiled nervously to himself; Walker was still asleep, though Saxon had finally perked up, ears alert and sporting a spiked ruff, growling loud enough for Gregory to hear it. He grimaced, nodding slowly, before giving an indignant sniff and turning back to the prisoner.
“You better pipe down, you hear?” Gregory taunted, taking a step closer to the cell door, making eye contact with Wakeman, “Or else I’ll have Saxon come in there, mate.”
Randy snarled and convulsed, slamming his hands, palms-open, against the door repeatedly, making Walker start in his seat.
“Eeyah, whadderinya doin’en?” he called to Gregory, who proceeded to ignore him.
“See?” Gregory chided, leaning closer to Wakeman, “You woke the old man. Now what’re we gonna do, eh? Maybe give you a bite to eat? You like dried meat, Randal?”
Gregory began to laugh, his curly brown hair bouncing with the rest of his large frame, but when he began to come down from his myrth, the look in Wakeman’s eyes made his blood stand still and piss itself. It was like looking in the face of the biggest, badest predator on the block, and knowing he’s got your number. Like a three-legged stegosaurus trapped in a ravine with a T-Rex. Like a pint of ice cream sitting out on Butterman’s desk.
Without warning, Wakeman convulsed, wretched, and let out a stream of projectile, bloody vomit that spattered the doors lining the opposite wall. Gregory screamed, falling back, flailing at his eyes and face, a horrific burning sensation beginning behind his eyelids and under his tongue, racing into his nostrils, down his throat, into his lungs, his stomach, his arms, fingers, legs, toes, hair follicles. He fell to his knees, clutching his throat, choking and wheezing, before a wave of seizures tore through him so powerfully, he fell to his side as the convulsions overwhelmed him.
“Saxon, run!” Walker shouted at the dog, getting to his feet and moving toward the vault door. He could hear Wakeman screaming in his cell, responding to the scene playing out just outside his door, as Gregory arched and rolled, moaning and crying, before flopping onto his stomach and belching out a wave of blood and bile that would have killed a healthy person.
“…Shaaaay-zus,” Walker breathed, taking a step back, terrified, before tumbling onto his rump, trying to press his palms into the floor and scoot backward.
Gregory leapt into a low crouch, his clothing drenched in filth, Wakeman’s blood mixing with his own to form rivulets from his hairline, into his eyes, down his chin, along his hands and down his legs. He moved forward like an animal, fingers splayed, knees bent, like an ape unwilling to walk upright, but finding a crouched run to be more efficient. Predatory stance.
Feet pounded on the stairs, the crackle and hiss of a radio echoed madly in the open, cavernous office space, and Walker twisted around from his sitting position to gaze back, praying to see Turner, Benji, Saxon, anyone. Gregory rushed forward, leaping, bounding, pouncing-
“Greg!” Benji screamed, hitting the top of the stairs and rushing in, forgetting his gun, which Nicholas had authorized them to carry, forgetting his pepper spray, which he never learned to use properly anyway, and forgetting himself.
“Fuck, Walker!” Turner shouted, Saxon racing past him as he stopped to catch his breath at the top landing. “Benji, stop, you daft prick!”
Walker turned back slowly, his breath hitching in his throat, as he was confronted with the blood-stained newbie Constable less than two inches past the end of his nose. Gregory was still crouched, eyes narrowed in curiosity, his hands free as he used only his legs to balance himself. Blood dripped from his clothes and face onto Walker, the old cop fighting for the strength to movemovemovemove, but frozen in terror.
At the last second, he rolled on his side, Gregory’s mouth and fingers gripping the sides of his head, twisting it too hard in his hands, snapping the old man’s neck like a chicken bone. He fell limp immediately, and Gregory dropped him, uninterested, and howled with defeat.
Benji stumbled back, shaking like a leaf, grabbing for his radio, as Saxon leapt past him, a mass of furious fur.
“C-c-c-calling all units!” Benji shrieked, willing his hands to still themselves long enough to convey the message, “Greg’s sick! God, Greg’s sick, and Walker’s…He’s sick, dear JESUS, of God, sweet Mary, holy-”
His string of invocations was cut short as Gregory came hurtling at him, having…disposed…of Saxon, and hit his friend in the stomach, punching into his chest with his fingers pointed instead of folded, driving down between the ribs. Benji hit the floor, the wind knocked out of him, pain racing through his body as Gregory jumped on his stomach with both knees. He felt fingers scrabbling at his chest, striking the spot below his sternum in hard, fast jabs, and in a last-ditch effort, he began to tear at Gregory’s eyes, face, arms, neck, anything to make him stop.
Teeth crunched down hard on his right hand, making Benji scream and writhe, wrenching his wrist in a feeble attempt to get away. Suddenly, both of Gregory’s hands drove downward between his ribs, breaking the connective tissue, shredding skin as sharp nails clawed visciously for purchase. Somewhere beyond Benji’s understanding, past his pain threshold, Turner was calling for backup…
Hands in his chest cavity now began to curl, to pull, to crack bone and peel back ribs, and Gregory snarled maliciously as the blood running down his face seeped into the wound on Benji’s hand, as it splashed against his exposed innards, as he screamed and shrieked and bled out across the floor, choking on his own fluids.
Turner watched in horror as the offensive sounds ceased and both Constables began to rise, to face him, and the distant sounds of officers struggling with the stupid fucking security door didn’t sound as promising as they had moments ago. For the life of him, he would never recall the moment when he pulled out his Baretta and fired two shots, missing wildly, sending the infected scrambling away, out of sight, out of mind, out of the building, and onto the defenseless streets.
He fainted dead away, dropping his gun, tumbling backwards down the long flight of stairs, cracking a rib and snapping his right leg so badly it jumped the tracks, broke the skin, and shot straight into his knee, shattering the kneecap. He was unconscious before he hit bottom, but when he woke up, it would be an entirely different world for him.
For everyone.
Yeah, jog on...wankers. :P
Nicholas brought Liam back to his place. It wasn’t anything special, just a two-bedroom cottage not far from the village, set along a row of similar houses. Danny lived down the street in one direction, and Doris and Tony in the other.
Being the overly-perceptive and equally insightful sociology major he was, Nicholas could sense a serious fissure just beneath Liam’s cool exterior, and as an officer in a similar leadership position, he knew how important it was for the two of them to keep up appearances for their teams.
Nicholas fixed tea while Liam sat at the kitchen table, engaging the salt and pepper shakers in some sort of odd battle. They didn’t speak. As a matter of fact, Liam seemed completely lost in his own thoughts, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he willed the dispensers to do his bidding. Nicholas stood by the stove, studying his old partner and boss, until the kettle began to whistle.
“Fuck,” Liam shouted, leaping out of his seat. Nicholas froze, giving him a questioning look, as Liam gave him the foulest glare he’d ever received, sinking back into his seat and melting against the table, as if every bone in his body were suddenly made of putty.
“I’ve never known you to curse, Chief,” Nicholas remarked, grabbing a hand towel and lifting the kettle from the heat, bringing it over to the table, “Nor have I known you to be so high-strung. Care to discuss?”
“Nicholas,” Liam sighed, rubbing his face and sighing.
“Chief,” Nicholas reprimanded gently.
“Nick,” Liam teased.
“Liam,” Nicholas shot back.
“You know, I’ve never known anyone to make my name sound as dirty as you can,” Liam laughed.
“And I’ve never known anyone to dodge questions so eloquently,” Nicholas replied, the smile dropping from Liam’s face immediately. “Now…Liam…I need to know what happened in London. All of it.”
“What d’you mean he’s staying here?” Wainwright hollered, making a rude gesture toward the ceiling of the station, though his intended target actually lay somewhere toward the southern side of the building.
“What else could we do?” Kels shot back, Adrian holding his arms to keep him from taking a swing at the Sandfordians. “Leave him? Should we have just left him, then?”
“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” Tony growled, taking up with Wainwright, staring the Met cops down. “You’re putting everyone in danger! The village, Gloucestershire…everyone!”
“He’s locked up,” Adrian replied, “He can’t hurt anyone.”
“It doesn’ matt’r!” Galen whined. “It doesn’ matt’r if ‘e can’ ‘urt no-one raigh now, it only matt’rs for when ‘e gets out.”
“Who’s to say he will?” Gregory asked, nonchalant as he was about all things. “Maybe he’ll just die in there…”
“Well, maybe he should do his dying somewhere else,” Cassie said bitterly. “Somewhere where my mum and dad don’t have to deal with it-”
“Now c’mon, then,” Russell cut in, stepping between the two warring groups. “There’s no need for any o’this, really, s’long as ‘e stays locked an’ boxed, e’s naigh a worry.”
“Am I the only one who wants to push him down something?” Tony grumbled.
“He should be shot,” Grace said darkly.
“Here, here,” Wainwright smirked.
“No,” Kincaid interrupted as Cartwright tried for high-fives, “I meant Wakeman.”
“GRACE!” Kels and Adrian shouted, but Duncan’s body language showed he agreed with her.
“Detective Wakeman should be killed,” Wainwright said solemnly, surprised to find a friend in a woman he was already silently calling Princess Bitch, “Before he can infect anyone else.”
“I remember…children,” Liam muttered, tipping his tea cup idly in his hands, watching the dark liquid as the vessel rolled around it, one accommodating the other so completely. “We were…escorting them out of the city, not just them, but as many people as we could find, really. They had all been put together by their teachers though, kept together, I guess so they could manage them, or so their parents could find them later, maybe.
“There were gun shots everywhere, all in the distance, all around us. Burning cars, piles of them, from people crashing, avoiding the infected, trying to run from them. Bodies, too. The whole city smelled of burning flesh and blood. People were throwing up everywhere, pitching over, falling in it, and the smell…God, the smell!
“There was so much chaos over the radio, we didn’t hear the warning when it came down: A rush of infected, coming our way, too many and not enough bullets. They crested over a firewall, which I swear was made entirely out of parts: Car parts, body parts, junk parts, gun parts, computer parts, tire parts, animal parts, heads and chests and faces, faces staring out of this pile, all burning. Twenty or so infected just rushed over it, like it was nothing, and burning as they came screaming down on us.”
Liam was silent for a moment, looking pointedly at his tea, which he set down heavily in the saucer, as if it weighed a thousand pounds. Nicholas let him sit for a moment, watching his breathing, trying to see his expression, to gage what capacity Liam had to continue. It would be better for him to get it out, really…
“Go on,” Nicholas prompted after a moment, his fingers wrapped tightly around his own teacup, facing Liam directly across the table.
“…Everyone…panicked,” Liam managed, looking up sharply at Nicholas, his red-rimmed eyes and quivering lips showing his lack of composure.
“A little boy, half my height, all skin and bones, like this baby bird I found as a boy…He grabbed me about the waist immediately, as if I were life itself, and started to cry so hard I swear he soaked my hip straight through. I just…stood there, rooted, watching what I really thought was my own death come pelting at me.
“I remember the smell of them, all burning hair and peeling flesh, boiling blood, pouring it out as they jumped on top of people. One woman, I guess she was a teacher, because the boy knew her, she was burning alive as a man pinned her down and…bit into her throat…didn’t kill her straight away. It was like watching a snake, he just kept his jaw locked, chewing away through her windpipe, and you knew he’d gotten there finally when she stopped screaming, but they were both burned to death before she…
“They came at me then, and the next thing I knew, well…D’you remember Kenneth?”
“Inspector Kincaid?” Nicholas replied after a moment. He’d been listening so intently, he’d almost forgotten he was supposed to be actively participating as well. He gathered his scruples and said simply, “Yes, of course.”
“Well, he saved my life, believe it or not,” Liam managed to laugh. “Stepped out in front of me, caught a screamer to the chest, hit the ground hard enough to break his hip. He was too old, supposed to retire in a month, what with Grace-”
“I heard there was a…relationship,” Nicholas cut in, putting on his protocol hat and his unnerving, professional grimace.
“Jog on, you wanker,” Liam snorted. “Kenneth was married. Grace is his only kid. He was a good man, even if he did stick you out in Nowhere, even if everyone thought he was a pratt. He saved my life.
“Really, though, he was trying to save the boy. He’d always wanted a son, which explained the Daddy complex he took with some of the recruits, and why Gr-…
“He couldn’t get up was the trouble, too much pain, no leg support, and I was frozen like a statue, just watching. I remember hearing Wakeman behind me, screaming his head off, crying, begging Adrian off. He was going to shoot him in the street, like a dog, but Duncan wouldn’t have it, the sentimental sodd. All around me, people were dying, but it scared me shitless to think that officers were dying as well. We had guns, we had training, we had authority, and yet…
“The fugging bastard tore Kenneth’s arm clean off, flipped him on his stomach, punched him over and over in the back so hard his spine must have broken, from the way Ken screamed. More infected just kept coming, gun shots were going off, people were dropping, infected and not, and then Kenneth looked at me and said, ‘Get out,’ before the fucker…He grabbed his head under Ken’s jaw and ripped back, and…It made a popping sound…
“The kid was at the wrong level when the shot came. Before I knew it, the two of us were coated in blood, and Grace and Kels were closing in, firing like mad, and it nearly broke my heart, the look on Grace’s face. She just…stood there, looking down at her dad, all bled out on the pavement…
“And then the kid, he started screaming, and I finally realized that the blood from the infected’s head exploding, the blood that hit me in the chest, had to have taken him full in the face. He was infected, and I was the bloody fucking twat who’d let it happen, and as I stood there aching over it, there was this…flash of gun, and…the handle of the gun hit him just right, it went straight through his skull, dropped him so fast, it…Kids have a lot of blood in them, Nick.”
Nicholas stared. There were no sane words for the things that he’d just heard. He felt like somebody had trampled him, quartered him, and then walked away casually. London was…London was really gone, and all the people he knew along with it.
“The…the boy, he would have killed others,” Nicholas finally responded, remembering his analytical side, trying to soothe Liam’s damaged psyche. “You did the right thing, mate.”
“I didn’t do it,” Liam whimpered, fighting back tears. “Grace, she…The boy wasn’t actually sick yet, Nick. He might not have gotten sick. He might have been alright, just traumatized or something, but Grace, she, she just-”
“And you got attached,” Nicholas finished, his disapproving glower resurfacing in full. He knew what it was like to let down the people who loved you, to become human. Sandford was a practice in lowered expectations. But for Liam to attach himself to other officers again, after…
“Why are we watching him again?” Gregory huffed, peeking in at the semi-conscious detective for the third time in ten minutes. “I mean, he’s not going anywhere. They’re zombies, not ninja-zombies, y’know.”
Walker merely grunted in reply, nearly asleep where he sat just outside the vault-like doorway to the holding cells. He and Gregory had been given first detail, making sure there was no change in Randy Wakeman’s activity, and alerting the others if any occurred. It was tedious work, but necessary.
Downstairs, Turner was manning the front desk as usual, with Benji keeping him company. Turner would never admit it, but the whole situation had him spooked. Dr. Fell was patrolling the village like it was his job, several members of the citizenry already telephoning the police to report “an odd stranger hereabouts.”
Apparently, Liam’s assessment was pretty spot-on as far as Sandford was concerned; Russell was a fucking loon.
The rest of their numbers were divided somewhat strangely; Adrian and Duncan had been offered lodging at Danny’s, and also the promise of action flics, supposedly to numbed their minds for a bit. Kels begged off Tony’s request that he stay with his family, saying he’d stop by later after dropping by Nicholas’s to check on Liam. Doris graciously relinquished her extra bedroom to Grace, who had found herself an unwelcome follower in Cassie, and so all three lady-cops were having a girl’s night in, so-to-speak. The Andys were doing…whatever it was they did, ignoring the problems of the rest of the world, focusing on their own trifling reality.
But they all carried their radios on them, just in case, so if anything happened…
Something solid hit the inside of the cell door, making Gregory practically jump out of his skin. He glanced slowly toward Walker, sighing with exasperation when he saw the old man hadn’t stirred at all. Even Saxon was unmoved, his head on his paws, curled dutifully by his master’s feet, blinking dolefully at the young Constable before yawning and readjusting his position in preparation of a good sleep.
Gregory approached the cell door tentatively, sliding back the viewing grate, peering cautiously down into the half-lit little room. A large pile of ragged clothing was lying limp in the center of the space, twitching ever so slightly and whimpering; Randy Wakeman was awake, or at least experiencing whatever extent of the normal human lifecycle the infected underwent during times of rest. The lump grunted, scrambled at the floor, palms clapping against concrete, before Wakeman snarled and fell limp again.
“Oi, you,” Gregory snapped, the pile leaping to life, taking the form of a man, crouched low, eyes gleaming red. He was taken aback for a moment, but then realized the detective was on the other side of a two-inch-thick steel-reinforced door, and so fell into this comfortable logic like a man in a hammock. “Quiet down in there, you raging git.”
Before he knew what was what, one-hundred-eighty-three-pounds and two meters of disease-carrying Metropolitan detective launched at the door, crashing violently against metal, fists making an explosion of sound against the barrier, face turned sideways in a nearly comedic attempt to squeeze through the slim opening. Wakeman snarled, wretched, and began to slump down again, his fingers clawing desperately against the door in a final attempt to stay upright.
Having recoiled, Gregory now smiled nervously to himself; Walker was still asleep, though Saxon had finally perked up, ears alert and sporting a spiked ruff, growling loud enough for Gregory to hear it. He grimaced, nodding slowly, before giving an indignant sniff and turning back to the prisoner.
“You better pipe down, you hear?” Gregory taunted, taking a step closer to the cell door, making eye contact with Wakeman, “Or else I’ll have Saxon come in there, mate.”
Randy snarled and convulsed, slamming his hands, palms-open, against the door repeatedly, making Walker start in his seat.
“Eeyah, whadderinya doin’en?” he called to Gregory, who proceeded to ignore him.
“See?” Gregory chided, leaning closer to Wakeman, “You woke the old man. Now what’re we gonna do, eh? Maybe give you a bite to eat? You like dried meat, Randal?”
Gregory began to laugh, his curly brown hair bouncing with the rest of his large frame, but when he began to come down from his myrth, the look in Wakeman’s eyes made his blood stand still and piss itself. It was like looking in the face of the biggest, badest predator on the block, and knowing he’s got your number. Like a three-legged stegosaurus trapped in a ravine with a T-Rex. Like a pint of ice cream sitting out on Butterman’s desk.
Without warning, Wakeman convulsed, wretched, and let out a stream of projectile, bloody vomit that spattered the doors lining the opposite wall. Gregory screamed, falling back, flailing at his eyes and face, a horrific burning sensation beginning behind his eyelids and under his tongue, racing into his nostrils, down his throat, into his lungs, his stomach, his arms, fingers, legs, toes, hair follicles. He fell to his knees, clutching his throat, choking and wheezing, before a wave of seizures tore through him so powerfully, he fell to his side as the convulsions overwhelmed him.
“Saxon, run!” Walker shouted at the dog, getting to his feet and moving toward the vault door. He could hear Wakeman screaming in his cell, responding to the scene playing out just outside his door, as Gregory arched and rolled, moaning and crying, before flopping onto his stomach and belching out a wave of blood and bile that would have killed a healthy person.
“…Shaaaay-zus,” Walker breathed, taking a step back, terrified, before tumbling onto his rump, trying to press his palms into the floor and scoot backward.
Gregory leapt into a low crouch, his clothing drenched in filth, Wakeman’s blood mixing with his own to form rivulets from his hairline, into his eyes, down his chin, along his hands and down his legs. He moved forward like an animal, fingers splayed, knees bent, like an ape unwilling to walk upright, but finding a crouched run to be more efficient. Predatory stance.
Feet pounded on the stairs, the crackle and hiss of a radio echoed madly in the open, cavernous office space, and Walker twisted around from his sitting position to gaze back, praying to see Turner, Benji, Saxon, anyone. Gregory rushed forward, leaping, bounding, pouncing-
“Greg!” Benji screamed, hitting the top of the stairs and rushing in, forgetting his gun, which Nicholas had authorized them to carry, forgetting his pepper spray, which he never learned to use properly anyway, and forgetting himself.
“Fuck, Walker!” Turner shouted, Saxon racing past him as he stopped to catch his breath at the top landing. “Benji, stop, you daft prick!”
Walker turned back slowly, his breath hitching in his throat, as he was confronted with the blood-stained newbie Constable less than two inches past the end of his nose. Gregory was still crouched, eyes narrowed in curiosity, his hands free as he used only his legs to balance himself. Blood dripped from his clothes and face onto Walker, the old cop fighting for the strength to movemovemovemove, but frozen in terror.
At the last second, he rolled on his side, Gregory’s mouth and fingers gripping the sides of his head, twisting it too hard in his hands, snapping the old man’s neck like a chicken bone. He fell limp immediately, and Gregory dropped him, uninterested, and howled with defeat.
Benji stumbled back, shaking like a leaf, grabbing for his radio, as Saxon leapt past him, a mass of furious fur.
“C-c-c-calling all units!” Benji shrieked, willing his hands to still themselves long enough to convey the message, “Greg’s sick! God, Greg’s sick, and Walker’s…He’s sick, dear JESUS, of God, sweet Mary, holy-”
His string of invocations was cut short as Gregory came hurtling at him, having…disposed…of Saxon, and hit his friend in the stomach, punching into his chest with his fingers pointed instead of folded, driving down between the ribs. Benji hit the floor, the wind knocked out of him, pain racing through his body as Gregory jumped on his stomach with both knees. He felt fingers scrabbling at his chest, striking the spot below his sternum in hard, fast jabs, and in a last-ditch effort, he began to tear at Gregory’s eyes, face, arms, neck, anything to make him stop.
Teeth crunched down hard on his right hand, making Benji scream and writhe, wrenching his wrist in a feeble attempt to get away. Suddenly, both of Gregory’s hands drove downward between his ribs, breaking the connective tissue, shredding skin as sharp nails clawed visciously for purchase. Somewhere beyond Benji’s understanding, past his pain threshold, Turner was calling for backup…
Hands in his chest cavity now began to curl, to pull, to crack bone and peel back ribs, and Gregory snarled maliciously as the blood running down his face seeped into the wound on Benji’s hand, as it splashed against his exposed innards, as he screamed and shrieked and bled out across the floor, choking on his own fluids.
Turner watched in horror as the offensive sounds ceased and both Constables began to rise, to face him, and the distant sounds of officers struggling with the stupid fucking security door didn’t sound as promising as they had moments ago. For the life of him, he would never recall the moment when he pulled out his Baretta and fired two shots, missing wildly, sending the infected scrambling away, out of sight, out of mind, out of the building, and onto the defenseless streets.
He fainted dead away, dropping his gun, tumbling backwards down the long flight of stairs, cracking a rib and snapping his right leg so badly it jumped the tracks, broke the skin, and shot straight into his knee, shattering the kneecap. He was unconscious before he hit bottom, but when he woke up, it would be an entirely different world for him.
For everyone.