Part Five

The undead sentry posted at the front entrance turned to study the broken glass doors while it listened to an odd hissing noise. Heeding the silent call of its master, the sentry waited for several more of the undead guards to arrive. Moving with perfectly synchronize steps, the unit of eight guard moved outside and spread out to look for the source of the sound.

It took less than a minute for one of the guards to find it, and the zombie leaned over to pick up a propane canister which had been left open. Turning to show it to the other zombies, the guard felt more than heard the gunshot which pierced the side of the canister.

The explosion was small due to the tank being almost empty, but it was still powerful enough to tear apart the guard holding the canister. A large section of the canister wall decapitated another zombie, and the body took a wobbling half step before collapsing.

A second shot hit a full tank of propane hidden behind the shrubs, and four of the undead guards were caught in the blast. They staggered around in an attempt to get away from the flames, and then they became stiff and fell over, their bodies locked in a final pose while they continued to burn.

Frank rose up from his hiding place on the roof across the street and turned to give a thumbs up to Gordon, who had run from the front of the investigative building back down to the truck at the end of the block. While Gordon drove the truck to the front entrance, Frank dropped a line over the side of the building to rappel back down to the street. As soon as he got to the truck, he opened the tailgate to pull on one of the improvised propane and kerosene flamethrowers.

Gordon pulled on the other, and he left his other hand free to pull another propane canister. He gave a quick nod to Frank before he ran toward the entrance of the precinct. Setting the canister down in the middle of the  front entrance, he whistled loudly. “Excuse me! Can somebody help me?”

Behind him, Frank was using the flamethrower to pick off the stragglers who had escaped the first two explosions. Gordon didn’t yet light the propane wand of his flamethrower. He was the reserve in case Frank ran out of fuel before they ran out of targets.

Gordon picked up the canister and moved further inside. The station was dark save for the battery powered emergency lights at the ends of the corridors. The small halogen bulbs tinted everything in a bluish light while creating heavy black shadow everywhere he looked. Though nothing moved in those pools of darkness, his mind still tried to play tricks on him.

Setting the tank down again, he glanced back at Frank before taking a deep breath to shout “Hello? I’m looking for the police!” He waited. “There’s dead people everywhere, and I’m… so alone!”

Frank groaned. “Good lord, not even a dead corpse would buy that line!” He turned off the propane valve and shrugged off the shoulders straps before handing the flamethrower to Gordon. “Here, hold this for me. I’ll show you a line guaranteed to work.” Leaning over, he drew a pistol with one hand and picked up the propane tank with the other. He moved down the hallways and set the canister on its side. Resting his foot on top of it, he stood up and rolled his head, smiling at the low crack that sounded from his neck. “Hey, I think we won! The zombies have all given up!”

He was hardly surprised when zombies began pouring into the hallway, and he kicked the canister away before he stated backing up. The canister was hard to find among so many legs, but the moment Frank spotted it, he fired.

The explosion both deafened and disoriented him. Panic filled him when a hand grabbed his shoulder until he saw it belonged to Gordon. As the detective pulled him back toward the front entrance, he watched the zombies cringing away from the flaming bodies. The flames began to flicker out, and he tossed a grenade over the fire and into the cluster of zombies.

Frank slipped the flamethrower back on and opened the propane valve before he tugged a flint torch igniter from his pocket to light the end of the wand. Gordon tapped his shoulder point back to the open door where he saw a plume of white smoke. He turned to look at Gordon and read his lips. The zombies were using fire extinguishers.

“I can’t hear a thing,” Frank mumbled and turned around toward the door, opening the kerosene valve as wide as it would go to cover the horde advancing on them.

The scene before him became surreal as burning zombies dropped silently to the floor. Other zombies tried use extinguishers to put them out, and Frank focused the wand on them. In his mind, he began to catalog the sounds he should have been hearing; the whoosh of the fire extinguishers, the roar of the fire, or the sizzling sound of flesh burning. Yet the only sound he heard was a high pitched ringing that slowly grew louder.

When he at last closed the kerosene valve, he knew it was time to retreat and reload. Moving back to the truck, he shut off the propane valve and slid off the pack. The first muffled sound he heard while he worked was Gordon using a torch igniter to start his own flamethrower.

Using a screwdriver to loosen the O rings holding the kerosene tank in placed, he wound off the hose fitting. He slid the nearly depleted tank out of the hiking fame before he grabbed another to replace it.

The changeover took him less than two minutes, and when he looked up, he found the street littered with charred corpses. “Oh hell, I missed the barbecue.”

Gordon walked to the tailgate and shut off his flamethrower, slipping off the straps to begin reloading. “I think I’ve dropped about thirty of them, but I stopped counting after the first group.”

Frank chuckled and gave a nod. “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

“Are there any reinforcements yet?”

“No, it looks clear.”

Gordon finished reloading and moved behind Frank as they made their way back inside.

Frank walked down the same hallway, stepping gingerly through the blackened bodies on the floor. He knew other zombies had to have put out the fires, but nothing moved in the hall. He opened the first door he came to and pulled a slim pen light front his chest pocket to look around. “It’s empty,” he whispered.

“They’ll be holding everyone in the cells downstairs. If the zombies can drive, it makes sense that they would know how to unlock a door.”

“Shouldn’t you be leading the way? This is your territory, right?”

“No, I’ll just provide directions, thanks,” Gordon tried to joke, but his voice kept faltering. It wasn’t emotion that chocked him, but the odd smell of burnt plastic coming from every body they passed. “There,” he said and pointed to a door. “We have to take the stairs down.”

“It’s kind of weird that the power is off.”

“I know, but then I have to wonder when the power is going to go down for the entire city. It can’t be too much longer, unless the zombies can also run the power plant.”

The trip down the stairs to the holding cells was tense, and Gordon tried not to think of how limited their options were becoming. With the power off, there was no other way to escape aside from the stairs, and they had a finite supply of fuel before they were just as helpless as everyone else.

The hallway was dark outside the door. “They disabled the emergency lights,” Gordon whispered.

“If you’re a human, I’d advise getting to the back of your cell now!” Frank shouted, waiting only a few seconds more before he sent a burst of flame through the door. Five zombies were ignited as they tried to sneak toward the door.

Though the zombies seems to be quite flammable, they also burned out quickly, and within seconds, the hall beyond was completely dark again. Gordon turned on the propane valve on his wand set the flow to a high enough flame to provide light a low light.

“Is anyone human down here?” He called out, sighing with relief when a cacophony of voices rose in the darkness.  “All right, keep quiet please.”

“Can’t see a damn thing,” Frank muttered before he stepped through the door.

“Try a short burst, and aim it at the floor,” Gordon said. Frank’s flamethrower burst caught another zombie who was armed with a fire extinguisher. Gordon ignored the thrashing zombie and instead used the brief moment of light to glace at the officers and criminals huddled in the cells together. The smell of burning plastic grew stronger, nearly choking him, but he took a breath and tried to find his voice. “Everyone stay calm and give us a moment to figure out where the keys are.”

“Check the desk. That’s the last place we saw them before the light went out,” a man’s voice said from somewhere much further away.

Gordon stepped slowly behind Frank, glancing back to the door in expectation of another horde to be closing in on them. He was turning to check the door again when he found Janice locked in a cell with  a number of uniformed officers and one of the FBI agents.

She locked gazes with him, and the relief in her eyes was obvious though she didn’t speak. She gave a short nod, urging him to keep moving, and he returned it before he moved on to the next cell. The resistance ahead fell away with only a few more jets of flame, and Gordon moved to the desk, passing the wand of the flamethrower just over the top before he found the keys. He was leaning over to reach for them when the lights flicked on.

“Oh, that’s bad,” Frank said.

“Yeah, no sh-” Gordon jumped at a gun shot, turning to see that Frank had put a bullet through the security camera in the corner. “Good idea.”

Frank turned to frown at him. “We need to take out the other one above the door before we start unlocking cells. I think the leader just showed up. Oh, and turn down your propane. You’re wasting fuel.”

Nodding as he turned down the flame on the wand to a small blue tip, Gordon drew his gun and eased toward the corner. He was ready to drop if he saw one of the undead guards, but the hallway beyond was still empty. He leaned around the corner to squeeze off a shot, shattering the camera and sending a shower of sparks and plastic to the floor.

“We’re opening the doors, but don’t just flood the hallway,” Frank said loudly. “I need to take point, and Gordon has to cover the rear on our way out. We can burn the undead and protect you, but I’m looking at a half a tank of kerosene, maybe less. We’re going to have to be fast and organized, but so long as nobody panics, everyone will get out of here alive, okay?” He smiled at the silent nods. “Now, before we leave, does anyone need to go to the bathroom?”

“Please shut up,” Gordon said and began unlocking the doors. He waved for Janice to come out of the cell.

She followed him as he moved down the hall to unlock the other doors. “Don’t think I’m being ungrateful, but I told you to stay away.”

Gordon made a strained smile. “My cell phone must have lost the signal for that part. Listen, I’ve got something of a plan, but we need to get everyone out of here first. We’ll have to travel on foot for a while, and that’s going to be dangerous.”

“I’m not about to object,” Janice said and glanced back at Frank before she lowered her voice. “What happened? Did you find the leader?”

“We were rushed out of the building.” Gordon unlocked the last door and paused to look at her. “John didn’t make it. We followed the leader to find out that he’s using some kind of machine to convert people. He’s been traveling around to convert his prisoners, so I decided to get in front of him and start putting together an army of our own.”

“It sounds better than what I was doing,” Janice said as she walked with Gordon to the end of the hallway.

Frank jogged to the door and opened it. “All right people, let’s do this quiet and organized. Don’t bother shooting even if you still have your guns, because nothing will have an effect besides fire.”

He turned and began moving up the steps, and the crowd of people followed him into the stairwell with surprising silence. No one spoke or tried to ask questions, and Gordon felt hopeful that they could make it out of the building without problems. Frank’s flamethrower roared, and Gordon’s hopes were dashed as he heard people shouting in panic. The group surged forward, and he heard Frank shouting in vain to keep the crowd under control.

They pushed past Frank, preventing him from using the flamethrower. Only after the crowd emptied out was he able to go on the offensive again. Gordon went up the flight of steps, where Frank was still trying to keep a horde pinned in the hallway with intermittent bursts while he tried to conserve the last of his fuel.

Gordon reached out to pull one Frank’s few remaining grenades from the harness. He slid his finger through the pin and flicked the grenade around to let its weight pull the pin before grabbing Frank’s shoulder to pull him away from the door. Gordon waited for the thumping explosion before he moved back to the door to open his flamethrower for a wide burst. The carpet ignited, driving the horde back down the hallway

Shutting the kerosene valve, Gordon let Janice and Frank run out first before he stepped into the hallway and ran. Behind him, he heard the sound of multiple fire extinguishers, and he spun around, stepping backwards while he set fire to the carpet and the bodies littering the hall. 

The scene which greeted him outside was sheer chaos. Many of the people trying to escape were being slowly dragged to the ground by small clusters of zombies. There were few targets that Gordon could aim at that wouldn’t also kill a human, but he knew that if he didn’t act, they would be dead anyway.

Frank torched a group of zombies running after a woman then dashed toward the truck. Gordon trailed after him, glancing back to see Janice on his heels. When she pointed, he turned to see a group of zombies moving in an effort to cut Frank off.

Frank turned and tried face them, but the wand sputtered only a tiny flame before going out. Gordon jogged a few steps ahead of Frank and swung the wand in a wide arc which sent the zombies falling to the ground with their heads and shoulders aflame.

He watched the bodies burning and thought how odd it was that he was almost used to the acrid plastic smell. Turning in a slow circle to check for more targets, Gordon flinched when a propane canister flew past his shoulder. “Hey!”

Frank gave him an apologetic look, though he didn’t stop working. He grabbed another propane tank and tossed it toward the front entrance. “Throw everything out, and get ready to jump in the back of the truck.” He looked at Janice. “Do you have a gun?”

“Yes, but you said-”

“You’ll be aiming for the tanks as we leave,” Frank interrupted her and tossed a larger kerosene tank, grunting with the effort.

Gordon let Frank and Janice do all the work, instead focusing his efforts on the zombies who ran out of the building. When he ran out of targets, he counted the hostages being pinned. While the undead had run twelve prisoners down, the vast majority had managed to escape. With no other targets to roast, Gordon moved hesitantly toward a pile to launch a short burst over the backs of the zombies. They writhed and rolled away from the man they held, who didn’t bother so much as a thank you before he got to his feet and took off running.

Gordon felt an odd conflict of emotions when he recognized the man as a gang banger who had confessed to three drive by shootings. He glanced around the piles, trying to figure out which were police.

His search was cut short when another pile of zombie stood up to come after him. The hostage they held also took off at full run, and Gordon frowned when he realized it was one of the FBI agents. “You’re welcome!” he shouted before turning the wand on the zombies.

He freed one more hostage before his wand also sputtered out. He shut off the propane valve and ran toward the truck. Janice clambered into the back of the truck while Frank shut the driver side door, and Gordon had just set his foot on the bumper when the engine started. Frank didn’t wait for him to climb over the tailgate before the truck was moving, and for a brief instant, he teetered awkwardly before Janice took hold of his arm.

Gordon felt irritated until he glanced back to see three zombies running after the truck and realized they had almost been close enough to have caught hold of him. He was still stepping over the tailgate when Janice fired her first shot, and the exploding tank sent bodies scattering, both the living and the undead. She fired twice more before the truck turned around a corner, but neither shot found their mark.
 
Gordon dropped onto his butt and shrugged off the straps of the flamethrower. He set it aside and laid back to rest his shoulders against the side of the wheel well. The truck slowed down, and his face filled with worry as he sat up. Turning his head, he spotted a uniformed officer walking from the sidewalk toward the truck.

He stood up and leaned over to extend his hand and pull the officer up. Frank didn’t stop the truck, making the transfer a little more difficult, but the officer finally settled himself on the hump of the opposite wheel well. “I didn’t think I was going to get away after I saw the horde waiting for us in the hall.”

Gordon shook his head. “We haven’t gotten away yet.” He had no sooner spoke before Janice slapped his upper arm. He was turning to ask why when he saw the van gaining on them.

“Zombies can drive?” the uniformed officer asked.

“They aren’t really zombies.” Gordon said and drew his gun. “Aim to cripple the vehicle.”

Frank had started to speed up, though he was trying to keep the truck steady. Even then, Gordon wasted three shots without hitting anything. The uniformed officer made two attempts, and Janice needed two rounds to finally correct her aim and blow out the tire, on the driver side. The van lurched sideways, and then flipped over.

Gordon turned to crawl across the bed of the truck, but he saw Frank gesture for him to get down. Through the front windshield, he saw the road was blocked with crisscrossed vehicles. The access road and the highway itself were clogged with cars.

Gordon slid awkwardly across the bottom of the truck as Frank stepped on the brakes and lurched the truck around in a wide turn. He let the truck come to a complete stop and leaned out of the window to look back at Gordon. “Where to now?”

“Do you have extra grenades at home?” Gordon asked.

“Yes, but you aren’t seriously thinking about trying to get inside the building again, are you?” Frank groaned to himself as Gordon nodded. “You aren’t going to kill the leader, so-”

“I don’t care about the leader. We need to get the surveillance tapes. Your video is really grainy, and it might not be enough to convince anyone to take us seriously. The videos from the surveillance cameras caught the whole assault on the SWAT team in full digital color from four angles.”

Frank opened his mouth and flapped it closed while he scowled at the detective. He opened the door and got out of the truck. “Before we go any further, let me ask you something. Whose plan got your partner killed?”

Gordon clenched his jaw and looked down. “If I’d let you go along with your plan, you’d be sharing a cell with everyone else. Maybe John would still be alive, but he wouldn’t have been for much longer, would he?” He paused as he looked up to glare at Frank. “You’ve been busting my chops all night, but what you won’t admit is that there isn’t a damn thing we can do that won’t be dangerous. We can’t even run away from the city to hide, because this will eventually spread out if we don’t do something.”

Frank sighed as he looked around for signs of trouble. “Fine, so where do we go after we gear up at my house?”

“We need to fill up the truck and reload the supplies for the flamethrowers. Then you need to get your car out of your garage so we can split up.”

Janice laid a hand on his arm. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Gordon nodded. “We’re making our plans before we split up, and we’ll be meeting back up for a last blazing run out of the city if we can survive the next few hours.”

Frank gave Gordon a doubtful look. “That’s a pretty big if, isn’t it?”

“It can’t be helped. With the city thrown into chaos, there’s nothing to stop the leader from beginning a mass conversion. We’ve got to either slow him down now, or gather enough evidence to help make a defense in some other city.”

Frank shut the door and put the truck in gear. He leaned out the window and offered Gordon a strained smile. “How many zombie movies have you seen?”