Authors: L A Taylor
Craig sat on a bench with his body bent forward. His hands rested over his face and he shook from crazy, terrifying thoughts. “I’m fine,” he answered from beneath his fingers.
Mike reached out and removed his colleague’s hands. Craig had bottled all this up, but would he now tell his boss that he too was to become a crazed killer? Or pray that the virus hadn’t spread to him? Either way he was damned.
“You’re not fine. I’m worried about you. I don’t want one of my star pupils breaking down on me, man.”
Craig couldn’t tell Mike what’d happened in the forest, so what was he going to do? This was going to eat him up just like the killer virus. “I’ll be okay, chief. I just need a moment alone if that’s okay with you.”
Mike hesitated, but could see that Craig was at breaking point.
“Sure thing, I’ll be inside if you need me.”
Once he’d left, Craig went over the speech that Mike had made from inside the caravan. He sucked in the terrible, life-draining words.
“Karen had turned just from a scratch.”
Were seven words spinning at a thousand miles per hour inside the shattered mind of this collapsing figure. He definitely didn’t want to become one of the death squad, but what could he do to prevent it from happening?
There was a way to stop the change before it even began, but had he the balls to attempt it? Craig looked over at the caravan and noticed no one watching him. Now more sad emotions entered his messed up head. It was as if everyone had forgotten him already. In Craig’s mind all he could think about was that they’d written him off, he’d been bitten and the trash was the place for him. The weird, dark, and gloomy thoughts made him feel the lowest he was ever going to feel. A man this low on self-esteem was surely going to do something completely stupid. Craig wasn’t thinking positive thoughts anymore. He was on the brink of harming himself and there was no one around to stop him. He released his gun for the last time, scowled, and placed the tip against his temple. There was no turning back from this point, and he didn’t.
One more tear dripped off his chin as the trigger squeezed. ‘BANG’, the impact split the opposite side of his head. The blood froze for a split second. Once the deadness crept in, the lifeless body tilted over and the red, flowing substance moved again, widening all over the bench until finally dripping onto the grass. The echoing sound of the bullet received the fullest of attentions from one hundred percent of the community. Craig had achieved his target of being noticed, but only after his death.
Mike was the first to reach the former officer’s body and knelt next to it. He wasn’t philosophical or even cared about what he was kneeling in. The blood reached his trousers, forming a diagram that outlined the shape of a knee. Mike had reached boiling point in the traumatized world. He felt confused to why Craig had opted for this resolution? And worst of all, couldn’t understand why he had done this when all the zombies were killed off.
The other men from the caravan could only stare. Mike felt like they were treating Craig’s death as some sort of sideshow and couldn’t stop the anger that now spilled from him. “What the fuck are you lot staring at?” he shouted, as he hovered in front of the others. “Hey, did someone say something?”
No one had spoken, and unless they felt very, very brave, weren’t going to either. Mike twisted his upper half from side to side. His eyes sent out sharp, sword-like daggers into the chosen victim. Todd and Chris intervened. Someone had to do something before the chief went mental and performed a vicious act out of character. Chris jumped in front of him. “Mike, no one said anything to you.” He placed his hands onto either side of the chief’s dangling arms. “You’ve got to snap out of this, please, for everyone’s sake you have to be strong. We’ve come here to pay our respects and not because we’re laughing or taking the piss.”
His words sounded like a battering ram, smashing the angry explosions out of the chief’s head. “I’m sorry. I lost it, but I’m okay now,” Mike now calmly said.
He swallowed hard. Jason, Wayne, Nash, Doug, Simon, Toby, George, and now Craig had all lost their lives in the past few days, and they were only eight reasons to why Mike would, should, and could lose it.
After gathering up the nasty feelings and throwing them away, Mike composed himself, walking over to the only other officer left. Kevin was so young, but somehow had done a lifetime’s police work on his first shift. “I’m very proud of you. If it was up to me then you would be one of us by now,” he said, smiling at the young cadet.
Kevin shook his hand, but didn’t reply. There was a good chance he was waiting for a more appropriate time to rejoice over what Mike said. The chief accepted the silence. The other men patted the younger one on the back and were extremely delighted with his performance.
Everyone waited for the backup to arrive to help clear the mess. There was nothing else they wanted more.
FORTY-TWO
Mike checked his watch to find that an hour had passed since he’d returned to the caravan site. The medics arrived just as the big hand faced north, but Mike now had a change of heart about supplying them with some help. He could see clearly that Chris was finding it difficult to keep awake and focused, so too were Shane and Todd, so offered the men some time-out. “You three get back inside, have a shower and rest. You’ve been magnificent tonight. I’ll probably be here for another couple of hours sorting this lot out.” There was the faintest of pauses before he spoke directly to Chris. “Have you got enough written down on what’s happened here?”
“I’ve got some stuff, but I need to go through it again to make sure it’s readable. Why?”
“Eventually, your lot will be down here snooping about, and I don’t want them writing any old crap. The people deserve the truth and you’re the person to give it to them. You’ve seen it with your own eyes so I know you won’t let the people down.”
Chris became slightly embarrassed after that speech, and for him to be left with a red face was another step closer to the two of them becoming permanent friends. “Let me know when they get here. It would be a privilege to be the man who delivers the news again. This’ll be the first honest speech where I haven’t wanted to be famous or make money. I’ll be doing this for the community and respect for the departed.”
Todd and Shane took this moment to do a bit of hand clapping. Whatever the reporter said had caused this reaction to arrive from the two bystanders. Mike produced one of his ‘I only do this on special occasions’ winks, and Chris smiled.
Mike was left with Kevin as the other men entered the caravan again. There was no way the chief would let all of them take a rest, especially while there was still some work to be done. If Kevin wanted to be as successful as Mike then he wouldn’t complain about sticking around.
The paramedics removed two bodies from the site and were now on their way toward Craig’s, stiff corpse, muttering as they slowly closed in. What they’d witnessed after taking away the first victims was bad enough, but they were now at it again, picking up more left over, human carcasses. The muttering developed into adaptations of their own theories on what’d happened here. It was hard for them to believe what others had said, but certainly, something extraordinary had occurred. “Where are the two officers that we spoke to the other day?” one of the hospital staff asked.
“What other two? What were their names?” Mike responded sharply.
“One was Wayne, and I’m trying to remember the other one.”
“They’re both dead.”
There was no messing about with Mike’s answer. It was quick but precise, taking the paramedics by surprise.
“Oh, right. I’m sorry to hear that,” replied the paramedic, as his voice softened.
The subject changed slightly once the other ambulance man reached the dead officer. “Is this one of yours?” he asked.
Mike glared at him. He was close to punching the fool for the attempted conversation piece. He didn’t, but he wanted to grab the man by the scruff of the neck and force him to listen to what the dead man had done for the future of this town. Mike had taken Craig’s untimely and unexpected death to heart, and seemed to be protecting Craig’s bravery from the arrival of any stupid comments. All the deaths were hard to swallow, but he felt guilty for failing to stop Craig from taking his own life.
“Doesn’t the uniform give any clues away, mate?”
Was this going to be another one of those moments where Mike dealt with a couple of characters that reminded him of a comedy duo? He prayed it wasn’t because he would surely explode if these clowns kept up the stupid interrogation.
“Did somebody shoot him by accident?” the first medic asked.
Kevin was happy to stay out of this. He’d no qualms with just listening and letting the chief do his thing.
“No, he did this to himself,” Mike said, gritting his teeth.
The medic was puzzled, but said no more as he helped his colleague lift the body. They placed it inside a body-bag, but as they did so, the second medic noticed dried, blood samples resting on Craig’s skin. He placed his fingers over the stain and seemed lost in thought. Mike felt irritated as he watched him. “What you up to?” he said.
“Did you know anything about this?” the medic said, while scraping blood away from around the faintest of injuries.
Mike showed clear signs of someone lost for words as he closely observed teeth marks embedded into the chest of the dead man. He now knew why his friend was so upset and distant earlier.
Why did he tell me he was fine when he surely wasn’t?
“Sorry, no, I didn’t know he’d been bitten.”
Not only did this discovery solve the mystery to why Craig sacrificed himself to save others, but it also made Mike realize that the medics were only doing their job, so, from this moment on, decided to make it his number one priority to work with these guys and not pick fights.
The subject changed, not because the chief was okay, but because Kevin was close to falling apart.
“Hey guys, how come there’s only two of you? You bring the right amount of vehicles, but only two people. It just seems weird that you’ve one each.”
“Bloody cut backs. We are low on staff as it is, but we keep getting fucking cut backs.” The medic carried on bagging the body during this important speech. “Me and Terry here have been dragged back in to work to help you lot.”
“I know what you mean about cut backs. If I’d more staff then I wouldn’t have been in this mess now. I’ve lost some good men, but the powers above me and you think that the money should be spent on other things.” Mike’s stress levels rose again, but this time it wasn’t aimed at the people around him. “I would love to know what’s more important to this proud land that we live in. What’s more important than spending the money on recruiting the next generation of police and hospital staff?” Mike finished.
The medic now wished he hadn’t mentioned anything, as it seemed he’d hit a sensitive spot in the chief’s head, but Mike continued to voice his opinion. “I might just go to the government when all this is over and ask them straight out.” There was another slight hesitation, then a fearful, angry smile before he finished. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Kevin chose his moment carefully before butting in and producing his own information, but his choice of conversation drifted back to the here and now. He knew the medics were going to be busy for a while, but did they? He told them where they would find the dead and gave them the names of the recently deceased individuals. There were small pauses as he mentioned his fellow warriors from the academy, but at least now the ambulance men knew what was required of them.
“The trail of bodies goes all the way back to the graveyard,” said Kevin. Both medics took a few seconds to take this information in, but the next sentence to follow from Kevin was going to be a sucker punch for one of them. “George never made it either. He too was brutally massacred by the creeping filth.”
He had saved the final name until last for his own personal reasons, but wasn’t to know that one of the ambulance crew, called Roger, was related to the dead officer. Roger swallowed hard after hearing this awful news. Picking up the dead and decayed was usually a breeze for him, but now he was left with the fear of carrying a family member. It would surely upset him when George was finally found.
The medics now felt extremely lucky not to be involved in this bundle of misery, and thought about what it would’ve been like for somebody else to be removing their corpses from this bloodstained, creepy site. Terry stepped in.
“I think we should wait until it gets light before scouring the area for the other bodies. We’ll remove the closest ones for now and take them to the morgue.”
Everyone agreed with the most logical of choices as it was completely stupid for them to try finding the remaining dead at this time.
Mike watched as Craig’s body was taken to the ambulance. He stared closely at the medics and could’ve sworn that they produced evil grins just before throwing the body inside, but a few squints of the eyes later and Mike was back to reality again. He was very pleased that this was just his mind playing tricks on him.
He asked the medics if they had managed to remove the corpses from the cemetery. Terry said that they’d done the task hours ago. He knew why Mike was concerned because he’d removed another officer from that bloodbath of a site.
The second vehicle was going to be used very shortly as the medics set about to locate, bag, and carry the nearest dead.
The chief was lost in what to do next at this precise moment. All that needed to be done was being done so he ordered Kevin to take a well-deserved break. “Get yourself inside with the others. Put the kettle on and have a drink. I’ll be in for a cuppa soon.”
“Okay,” a surprised Kevin responded.
Mike was left to suck up the ghosts of the newly departed. There was no rest even in death for the victims as he felt the souls of his former employees floating around him. For a brief moment he sniffed the air and the vapid aroma of the aftershave that George wore found its way up his nostrils. Deep, way deep inside his stomach, he felt the tormented spirit of his old friend against his skin. He couldn’t explain it to anybody though, no one would believe such nonsense, but he knew George’s soul circled him. Maybe it would keep close until his corpse was removed out of the nightmare forest.
The time fast approached 5.00am as Mike sat inside the caravan. The three civilians had found a peaceful moment, crashing out inside the two bedrooms before Kevin showed up, so the two, now tired individuals were spaced out across the built in furniture.
The medics were coming back at around 7.00am. There was going to be one last search for any lucky survivors, but it was more likely going to be a search for the rest of the victims.
Kevin nodded off and Mike was close to doing the same. He returned two, half filled cups of cold tea to the kitchen worktop and sat down again. After another five minutes though the seat he was in had now become one of the most important things in his life. It was teasingly comfortable and so it was hard to resist the temptation of closing his eyelids for a sleep that he needed so badly.