Part Four

Captain Luke Murphy checked the entrance of the building and turned to look at his team. “Everyone stay alert.” He turned and jogged to the entrance followed by two of his men. The others divided into three man groups to move to the sides of the building.

“The west entrance is clear,” a voice whispered in his earphone.

A second later, another voice reported in as well. “The east entrance is clear.”

Luke caught a flicker of movement at the security station, where four zombies rose from the shadow. “What the-”

Hands gripped his arms, and an arm slipped under his chin, drawing tightly around his throat. The last thing he saw was the placid face of the tallest zombie behind the security station change into a coldly malicious smile.

***

President Crane sat down in his limousine and glanced at Jake Milton. “Do we have any good news?”

“Not really, no. We lost captain Murphy’s team a half an hour ago. Captain Patterson’s team called in ten minutes ago and part of their report seemed positive. The team returned to the barn to destroy the equipment and kill the horde staying in the house by locking them in and burning the place down. They’d returned to the girl’s residence an hour ago and found a swarm of zombies moving in. Captain Patterson’s men attempted a rescue, but Frank was shot in the process and killed.”

“I see. We’ll have captain-”

“I’m afraid I wasn’t finished. Frank’s wounds were covered in a zombie’s blood during the fighting inside the house, and after he died, his wounds began healing rapidly. He’s made attempts to move, and although shooting him in the head stops him from moving for a few seconds, he quickly starts trying to get out of his bonds.”

“What about Captain Turner and detective Reed?”

“Their transmitters stopped functioning and we’ve lost track of them. Also, it’s become all but impossible to use a cell phone reliably in the city. The impression from the local FBI branch suggests the zombies might be hijacking the cellular networks for their communications. As their population rises, their communications make any other kind of traffic on the network impossible.”

“We may need to shut down the satellites.”

“Sir, I don’t believe that would work. We haven’t seen a spike in traffic on the satellites, and at this point it’s only a guess that the loss of network service and the zombies’ form of communication are related. It wouldn’t be wise to shut down the entire country’s cellular network for the sake of isolating two cities.”

“What is the situation in San Antonio?”

“The police have already been forced to pull back off the streets, and the phone lines have become swamped. With the breaks in communication it’s difficult to get accurate numbers on how many people are missing.”

“The leader is running on an accelerated schedule in San Antonio, so perhaps the main point of the assault is there, while Houston is a distraction.”

“It’s highly probable. Intelligence estimates are suggesting the leader has enough numbers to stage an assault of one of the military bases, possibly Lackland or Sam Houston.”

“But is the leader is San Antonio or Houston?”

“He hasn’t been sighted in either city as far as we can tell.” Jake frowned. “The press conference is less than an hour away, and we still don’t have any solid information on what’s going on.”

***

Frank laid on his side, having long ago given up on trying to get out of the cables binding his wrists and ankles together. The door of the room opened, and a soldier walked in. Frank had seen the soldier every few minutes, and he frowned as he tried to talk his way out of another repeat of the same routine. “Hey, look, we’ve done this joke to death by now. Couldn’t you-”

The soldier ignored him, drawing a handgun and shooting Frank in the chest and throat five times. Frank saw the room blur away until there was only a single point of light in his vision. Yet just when he thought he’d been truly killed, the point of light expanded out until he was looking back up at the solider, who put the gun away and started taking notes on a memo pad. “Hey, can you mark down somewhere that this hurts like hell every time you shoot me?”

The soldier left the room without acknowledging him, and Frank groaned. The groan became a deep retch without warning, and he found his mouth full of a thick mucus and a pair of lumps which had a metallic taste. Spitting, he saw two of the bullets mixed in with the white mucus. He struggled weakly to back away from the mess, finding the smell was overwhelming.

The door opened, and Frank shook his head. “Please, not-“ Turning his head back over his shoulder, he saw Robin close the door. “Oh thank goodness. Will they talk to you? Because they won’t say anything to me.”

“They aren’t saying much to me either.” Robin walked around the room so that he could see her from where he laid. She sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall. “What’s happened to you?”

“Every fifteen minutes or so, a soldier comes in here to pump ammo into me.”

“No, I meant…” Robin stared at him with a confused expression. “You’re… dead, aren’t you?”

“No, I don’t think I fit the standard medical term for it.” Frank grunted as he tried to sit up. He rocked his upper body while propping his elbow out to the side, and then pushed away from the floor with his arm, nodding when he’d settled himself upright into a sitting position. “I’m not one of the zombies either, though guessing by my hands, I’d say I probably look like one.”

“Yeah.” Robin got on her feet and duck walked toward him timidly. She raised her hand, hesitating before she closed it over his wrist. “You aren’t cold.”

“I feel cold.”

Robin leaned closer to lay her hand over his chest. “You don’t have a heartbeat.”

“Yeah, and I don’t seem to be breathing either.” Frank looked up at Robin’s worried expression. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Frank, you’ve become one of them now.”

“No I haven’t. Listen to me. Can you think of even one zombie who’s tried to speak?” Robin stood up and started walking toward the door. “Wait, please.” She stopped at the door and turned to look at him. “You have to talk to them for me. I don’t want to escape or anything, but maybe you could convince them to stop shooting me, please? It hurts every single time they do it, and they won’t even look at me now unless it’s to aim a gun.”

Robin opened the door. “I’ll try.”

Frank watched the door shut and dropped his head onto his knees. He wanted to feel hope that things could get better, but his gut instinct told him he didn’t have much time left before the soldiers began making attempts to dismember him.

***

Luke woke up on his side with his arms and legs bound. Turning his head, he saw other members of his team scattered around the darkened office. “Is everyone all right.?” He listened, confirming that all of his team was accounted for. “Can any of-”

The door opened, and zombies poured in to grab the men up by their shoulders. They were dragged out of the room and along a hallway before their short trip ended in a conference room. The soldiers were dropped into padded chairs while other zombies opened the blinds to a view of the sun setting low on the horizon.

Luke saw the same tall zombie from the building lobby enter the conference room. It walked to the window and watched the sun set before turning to look directly at Luke. Smiling, the zombie gestured out the window. “We already control the police stations, and we were able to keep our stockpiles of troops hidden on the outskirts of the town. I’m sure your superiors expected us to stick to a pattern, but Dallas was a test run, and this is the real assault.”

Luke tried to suppress his shocked expression but when he spoke, he gave himself away immediately. “How is it that you can speak while the other zombies can’t?”

“Zombies? How cliché. Is that what your superiors have dubbed us as?”

Luke shook his head. “I won’t tell you anything.”

“No, I wouldn’t expect you to. I didn’t bring you here for information, and you won’t gain anything useful from me. Rather, I want you to deliver a message to your leaders for me.”

Luke stared at the zombie with a look of disbelief. “You’re going to release us?”

“No, I’m going to release you. After all, who needs a team of messengers?”

Luke’s chair was rolled back to the far wall, and a pair of zombies pressed their hands into his cheeks and brows, drawing his eyes open wide. “What are you-”

“You called us zombies, and though we are not normally so crude, I thought perhaps I’d treat you to a little show of sorts.” The leader opened the door of the conference room, and more zombies filed inside. They hissed softly as they moved to stand in front of the soldiers, and all at once they shared the same expression of crazed malice. “You wanted to see zombies?” The leader asked and grinned.

Luke saw another zombie walk into the conference room with a small video camera. As it settled the camera on a soldier, the zombies in front of him moved forward. While two zombies plunged their hands into his stomach, tearing the skin and the muscle wall away, another two grabbed his hands and broke them off at the wrists. The soldier howled in agony before a zombie plunged its hand through the wound in his gut up into his chest cavity to crush his heart and tear it loose. The zombie who had snapped off his right hand leaned over the chair to tear his face off and stuff the loose flesh into its mouth.

Luke tried to look away, but the zombies holding his head forced him to watch as one by one, his men were killed, dismembered, and consumed. He was screaming long before it was over, and the leader allowed him to scream long after the last soldier’s bones had been stripped clean. But just when he thought they could shock him no more, the zombies turned a light shade of green before starting to belch and then retch onto the floor.

When at last the only sound in the room was Luke’s terrified panting, the zombie leader returned its attention to him. Its feet squished on the blood soaked carpets as it walked closer, and it seemed to relish the way every step drew a shudder from Luke.

Leaning over, it grinned broadly. “Tell your masters that there will be no mercy.”

***

The patrol of zombies stopped in the middle of the street, all of them listening intently. The soft sound of kittens mewling caused them to turn their heads simultaneously toward a house on their right. The windows and doors were left open, and they heard the soft mewling again, louder and more distinct, as if one of the kittens had become frightened by something.

Moving into the house, the zombies looked around as three kittens mewled in rapid succession, each one coming from a different part of the house. They spilt up, and two zombies walked into the master bedroom.

The mewling came again from the closet, and the zombies walked inside, where another mewl drew their attention down to a backpack on the floor. A zombie leaned over to pick up and unzip the bag. The terrified orange kitten looked up at the zombie and mewled louder.

It reached into the bag then paused when it heard a wet crunching noise on its left side. The zombie glanced back at its partner, noticing it no longer had a head. The zombie turned around and saw a scrawny teen with a machete drawn back, and it dropped the bag to raise its hands in self defense. The machete hacked off its arm, and the teen turned the blade to swing the other direction.

Scott watched the zombie’s head roll back into the closet and he looked toward the door, finding Janice covered in white blood. He gave her a quick thumb up and went to the closet to pick up the bag. The kitten cried as he zipped the bag shut. “Good boy. Just keep that up and we’ll be giving you a big milk dinner tonight.”

He walked into the living room as Gordon emerged from the hallway. Behind him another woman was creeping timidly along, looking as though she expected an ambush at any second.

“Mary, this is Scott and Janice.” Gordon’s voice was soft and soothing, and he waved for her to come out of the hall. “It’s okay, we can take care of the zombies.”

“Well, some of them,” Scott said and looked back at the kitten mewling. “Hey, I’m starting to hate this plan. The kid’s making me feel guilty for using him like this.”

“Yeah, but it’s better than using a human, and so far, their little lungs have helped us flush out a lot of small hunting parties.” Gordon smirked. “Or are you feeling guilty because it was your idea?”

“Well, every time I open the bag to check on him, he keeps giving me these sad little looks.”

Janice shook her head. “Still, it makes me wonder why the zombies are taking the animals. We haven’t seen any zombie animals, so why would they want to take them?”

“Food?” Scott guessed.

Gordon shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve never seen what these zombies eat, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Well Mary, we’d love to have you come along with us, but we’re actually going looking for the zombies,” Janice said. “If you’d prefer to stay here-”

“N-no, I’ll come with you.”

“If we keep this up, we may need to track down a van,” Scott said while he walked to the front door to check outside. “Clear.”

Gordon waved for Mary to follow Janice and he took the rear position. “Do you think we’re ready to check out the precincts yet?”

“No, we could still use a few more people. Preferably people like Scott.”

Scott laughed and made a show of buffing his knuckles on his shirt. “Who knew little league baseball could prepare me for a zombie invasion?”

“None of you are police?” Mary asked.

“They used to be,” Scott said.

“Gordon was a detective in Dallas. I was the captain of the homicide department.”

“So what are you doing in Houston?”

“Mostly breaking the law, actually,” Gordon said.

Janice nodded. “Yes, quite a few of them.”

Mary was ushered into the back seat of a blue ford Taurus, and she leaned over to look at the police radio mounted crudely on top of the dashboard. Her gaze drifted to the small collection of shotguns that Scott stepped around to get in the back seat on the driver side of the car.

Scott smiled at her. “Don’t worry. We only look like bad people for the first few minutes.”