Chapter Five: Another Day, Another Dollar
Sergeant Jerome Wallace watched as the sun finally crested over the eastern horizon. The first telltale rays of gold and yellow peeked over the horizon and shone through the cityscape. The tops of the tallest skyscrapers had been illuminated by the sunlight for a little while, sunlight which was gradually traveling further and further down as the sun drew closer to its emergence. Now, the edges of the sun were visible to those on the ground.
Wallace breathed in the cool, crisp morning air, enjoying the coolness before the summer sun did its work and made the day hot and sticky. "Hey, sun's up," the veteran police sergeant said to his companions. He walked over to Reg Carson, his friend from the old days in the police academy, and prodded him with his foot, jostling him awake, "Reg! Common, Reg, we gotta get movin'."
Carson let out a low moan and forced his eyes open, pushing himself up to his knees, and then climbing to his feet. He winced as he put weight on his left leg, where he had been bitten by one of the Infected during the escape from the foodstore below.
Though it was a subtle reaction, Wallace, who had always had an affinity for detail, noticed it, putting the two and two together to make four. "The bite still bothering you?" Wallace asked.
Carson nodded, but said nothing, offering only a slight shrug.
"Keep an eye on it," Wallace advised, "Don't want you coming down with a staph infection or anything like that." The black sergeant moved over to the other man with them on the roof of the foodstore, a fifty-eight year old man named Henry. Wallace lay a hand on the sleeping man's shoulder and shook him awake. "It's time to leave," Wallace said.
Henry cracked open his eyes. "Sunrise already?" the older man croaked, his voice raspy with the dreariness of waking up.
"'Fraid so," Wallace offered Henry a hand, but the older man declined, climbing to his feet by himself. The police sergeant bent down and picked up Henry's twelve-gauge double-barreled shotgun, flipping it around and holding it out to the older man grip-first.
Henry took the weapon, nodding in thanks. He opened the breech and reached into his shoulder-bag and pulled out two shells, slotting them into the two barrels and snapping the breech closed. "I'm ready whenever you youngsters are," the older man nodded to the two policemen.
"Alright, let's head out," Carson said, walking over to the edge of the roof. He paused when he reached the end, tapping his foot, a frown creasing his forehead. "Uh…where exactly are we going?" the sergeant asked, "Never really thought that far ahead yet. Where the hell are we supposed to go from here?"
"There's gotta be an evac somewhere in the city," Wallace muttered, pausing to think, "You still have your radio?"
"Nope," Carson shook his head, "Lost it at General Hospital. You?"
"It's downstairs," Wallace gestured to the cemented roof at his feet, referring to the Infected-filled foodstore which lay below. The night before, a mob of Infected had broken through the barriers erected against the foodstore's front windows, allowing dozens of them to pour in. The survivors inside had been massacred. Wallace, Carson, and Henry—the only survivors of the foodstore—had been up on its roof ever since. "I sure as hell ain't goin' down there to get it."
"Then where the hell are we supposed to find a radio?" Carson sighed in frustration, "Without one, we might as well be blind and deaf. We'll never be able to find out where the military is, or where they're evacuating citizens."
"If they're still evacuating citizens…" Wallace muttered, "The city sounds awfully quiet to me."
Carson instinctively cocked his head, falling silent and listening closely to the environment around him. There were the raspy moans of the Infected on the street below, the occasional burst of distant gunfire, and the faint popping of smoke and flames…but there were no human voices or sounds, no sirens, no helicopter pilots, no horns or cars. Carson found that Wallace was right; the city was too quiet.
"General Hospital wasn't the only place to have Infected," Wallace pointed out, "Saint Mary's, West Children's, Downtown General, Saint Christopher's, and all the others; we heard reports of similar outbreaks from the other hospitals all over the city."
"God knows how fast they spread…" Henry murmured, "And it wouldn't be like having a single epicenter which the ripples spread further and further away from. With all those hospitals having outbreaks…the infection would spread from many places, and eventually each individual outbreak would mingle with the adjacent ones. It would have happened all last night; it would would have been dark, the news media and the populace in a chaos, a frenzy to get out…we could be looking at the worst road jams of we've ever seen in our lifetimes."
"Well, that shoots down escaping this hellhole in a car or truck," Wallace concluded. "All the highways and roads are gonna be clogged tighter than a stuffy nose."
"Hey…we're on North 24th Avenue right now, aren't we?" Carson asked suddenly, the wheels in his mind beginning to turn.
"Yeah," Wallace replied, curious to see where his friend was going with this.
"If we stick to this road and head south, it should take us back to our district…my point is that we should head to the Sidewinder. We can resupply there, but remember that one time two years ago when that ice storm ripped through the area? We lost power for over a week, but Seamus had that hand-cranked survival radio which he used to listen to the hockey game."
"That's right…" Wallace nodded, a slight grin appearing at the edge of his mouth, "That radio was his life's blood after the TV went down. And since it's hand-cranked, we don't need to worry about batteries. Probably the only hand-cranked radio we're ever gonna find, might as well go after it."
"It's settled, then," Henry affirmed, joining Wallace at the edge of the roof. "Just one thing…what the hell is the Sidewinder?"
"Only the best pub ever to grace the streets of this city," Carson shrugged, "Something like that."
"Yeah, that sums it up," Wallace grunted in agreement. "Everyone ready? If y'all got any last things you want to take care of here, now's your last chance. Nothing? Aight, groovy, let's get the hell off this roof."
Wallace and Carson first gave Henry a hand, lowering him down from the edge of the roof as far they could before letting him drop to the sidewalk. The two cops then dropped down on their own. The foodstore was only a single story tall, so the drop was not far, only fifteen or so feet. Wallace and Carson made sure to bend their knees and fall into a crouch when they hit the pavement, absorbing most of the shock of the impact.
The nearest Infected sharing the same street turned towards the three men, taking note of their sudden presence with outright hostility. There were a dozen or so staggering about the sidewalk nearby, and all of them turned towards Wallace, Carson, and Henry, sprinting as fast as they could. Blood and spittle flew from their mouths as they pressed on, loping over the cars in the road and the piles of rubbish on the sidewalks.
"Right!" Wallace exclaimed, dropping to his knee and drawing his P220.
Carson did likewise, kneeling next to his friend, thumbing the safety off of his sidearm. "Six for six?" the sergeant asked.
"Sounds fair," Wallace conceded. He took aim at the nearest Infected, squeezing off a shot. The Infected's eye imploded and it tripped up, falling to the asphalt, lying motionless, a pool of blood spreading out around its head. Wallace moved on to his next target. His next shot missed the head, catching the woman in the side of the neck. The Infected gave a pained growl, but kept right on running.
Henry fired one of the two shells in his shotgun, taking off the top of the Infected woman's head.
"Down one, that's our tie-breaker," Carson said, firing off three shots into the chest of another oncoming Infected before dropping a second who came up right behind the first.
Wallace took out a fifth Infected, and then a sixth, methodically and carefully aiming for headshots in order to conserve ammunition. More and more Infected fell to Wallace and Carson's careful aim as they charged the two police sergeants until finally there was just one remaining. Both cops brought their sidearms about, took aim, and fired at the same time. Two bullets slammed into the Infected's skull at the same time, actually flinging the disheveled man back several paces.
Both Wallace and Carson hesitated, seeing the last Infected fall. "Whose was that?" Carson asked.
Wallace shrugged. "Tie?" he suggested.
Carson, recognizing the olive branch, nodded in agreement. "Tie."
Henry gave the two cops an odd, sidelong glance. "You boys are going to be in straitjackets by the end of the week," the older man quipped, rolling his eyes.
Wallace shrugged, checking to see how many rounds he had left in his current mag. "It's easier to shoot targets than it is to kill men and women time after time."
Carson gave an agreeing grunt. "We should just keep count and let the end of the day decide who gets the most," the other police sergeant suggested, "If we keep on doing it after every street, we'll end up losing track-" the veteran sergeant broke off suddenly, falling into a coughing fit.
Wallace put a hand on his friend's back as Carson continued to cough. It was a deep, chesty cough; more than once Carson had to hock up unmentionables from deep in his throat, spitting them out onto the sidewalk. "Watch the boots, man," Wallace said, moving his foot to avoid one of Carson's lugies.
"You alright, officer?" Henry asked, concern flitting across his lined face.
"I'm fine…" Carson managed to say between coughs. Finally, the coughing subsided, allowing Carson to take a deep breath. The sergeant exhaled, standing back up straight. "I'm fine," Carson repeated himself, shaking his head to clear it. "Call me Reg, by the way."
"Okay…Reg," Henry murmured, though the name sounded funny coming out of the mouth of an older man who seemed to have not had any close friends for the past decade.
"We'll work on it," Carson said to the older man, suppressing a grin.
"You're sure you're alright?" Wallace didn't sound convinced, but he was ready to lay the matter to rest if Carson maintained his charade.
"Yeah, Jerome, I'm pretty damn sure," Carson sighed. "Just got something stuck in my throat."
"Yeah, about ten pounds of phlegm…" Wallace muttered, prodding Carson's discharge on the sidewalk with his boot. "Keep an eye on yourself, Reg; you're no good to me on your back retching your guts out."
"Noted," Carson rolled his eyes. "Now, if we're done going through our little med-school session, shall we get a move on? The Sidewinder ain't gettin' any closer on its own."
Wallace gave a slight nod and started to head down the sidewalk, walking south. Henry and Carson fell in step with the black sergeant, walking on either side of him.
"That baby yours?" Wallace gestured to the twelve-gauge Henry was holding, breaking the silence after a long stretch of walking.
"This? Naw," the older man shook his head, "Picked it up in the foodstore after the zombie things broke through the windows…I don't think it's previous owner is going to be needing any longer…"
"Next time we find a weapon, you might want to swap out," Wallace suggested. "That weapon can only hold two shots at a time…and if another horde decides to jump us, the reload time on that sucker is gonna kill you."
"I'll keep my eyes open," Henry said, giving an agreeing nod. "It'll have to make do for now, though."
Wallace, Carson, and Henry continued walking down the road, heading south towards the heart of the city. There were more Infected wandering the street as they kept on walking, but there were no overly large groups of them—nothing on the scale of the flood of Infected that Wallace and Carson had nearly drowned in at General Hospital.
Usually, the Infected would come at the three men in twos or threes, either coming from further up the road, from the outlying streets and alleys, or from the countless shops and windows lining the sidewalks. There were dozens of Infected shuffling about, but they did not all take notice of the three men at the same time. Sometimes, Wallace would be able to walk right up to an Infected man or woman before the animalistic creature would take notice of them, other times they could sense him from hundreds of yards away. Another observation he made was that the ones who did not immediately notice his presence did notice other Infected running towards him, and would therefore join in. The nearby ones were also drawn by gunfire, but they weren't exactly attracted to it; it was more something that they simply noticed and treated as a hostile threat, which it usually was.
The three men walked down that same road for an hour or two, or three—Wallace easily lost track of time. He did not have a watch…but when he really thought about it, a watch was good only for telling specific time, and specific time was only good for rigid schedules, or ensuring that you don't show up to work late. Well, work and schedules certainly were no longer a concern—having the world as you know it crumble all around you, torn down by bloodthirsty zombie-things, tends to change one's outlook on life a little bit. Wallace already had a way of telling time; looking up into the sky and seeing where the sun was. If it were cloudy, he would simply look up and see how bright it was, but today was a perfectly clear summer day.
The sun was passing its noontime apex in the sky when Wallace held up a hand and had everyone stop to take a breather. "In here," the black sergeant gestured to a convenience store which they were passing by. He holstered his P220 and unsheathed his nightstick, executing a theatrical twirl before swinging it around and thrusting it into the glass window, shattering it.
The two Infected which were inside instantly whipped around to face the loud noise, baring their teeth and leaping at the disruptor of their peace. Wallace flashed a toothy grin as he brought his nightstick around and cracked the first man across the temple, sending blood and bone fragments flying away. Henry took aim and emptied one of his barrels into the second Infected just as Wallace was turning to intercept the man.
The sergeant ducked and twisted away as the spray of bodily matter from the shotgun blast flew through the space where he had just been standing. "Nice shot," Wallace said to the older man, paying his respect where it was due. The sergeant then walked through the handful of aisles to the drinks shelves, sliding open one of the plastic doors and grabbing three bottles of water. He kept one and tossed the other two to Carson and Henry.
Everyone relieved their earlier thirst by pretty much downing their entire bottles. Wallace grabbed three more water bottles and passed them out, saying, "Don't know when we're gonna find anymore water like this; might as well take some with us."
"Anyone feeling a little chilly?" Carson spoke up, stuttering his words a little as he said them.
Wallace looked at his old friend like he had just turned purple and sprouted two additional heads. "Reg…it's over eighty degrees outside; what have you been smoking?"
Carson said nothing. He wordlessly tucked away his water bottle and unholstered his P220, walking over to the shattered window. Wallace looked closely and noticed that his friend was looking a little on the pale side. He also observed that Carson, for the past hour or so, had begun to limp, dragging his left leg—the one which had the bite wound. He had had another one or two coughing fits as well. Something was amiss with the veteran sergeant; that much was evident, but Wallace did not know what it was, and Carson stubbornly refused to admit that he was feeling under the weather.
Wallace was picking his way back outside through the broken window when he heard it; a faint, blaring noise echoing off the faces of the buildings from further down the street. It stopped for a second, then resumed.
"Is that a car horn?" Henry asked, cocking his head in order to hear the mysterious sound better.
"That was my first thought," Wallace agreed. "It's not a car alarm—the pitch is too low…it's not broken either, the pattern is irregular. Someone, somewhere, is honking it."
"Might as well give the poor bastard a hand, whoever he is…" Henry declared, "That horn's gonna attract anything else with the ability to hear; we should get a move on."
The three men checked their weapons one last time before setting off back down the street at as fast of a sprint as Carson could manage with his injured leg. As they were in a hurry, they blew right past several allies full of Infected. In most cases, they moved fast enough for the Infected to even notice them, but occasionally Wallace or Carson would have to take out a few Infected who actually gave chase.
The car horn grew louder and louder until Wallace finally spotted the source; an overturned silver sedan with a thick ring of snarling, shrieking Infected surrounding it. The ghouls were all over the overturned car—around it, on top of it, all of them scrabbling, clawing at the windows, trying with animalistic fervor to gain entry.
Wallace could see a man inside the car. He couldn't get a good look at him, but he could tell that he was still strapped into the driver's seat, hanging upside-down, laying on the horn. Sure, honking the horn was attracting the nearby Infected, but there was no other way to call for help.
The window of the sedan cracked ever so slightly, allowing the man inside to shout, "Excuse me! I could use a hand over here, if it's not such a terrible inconvenience!" The man's voice was dripping with sarcasm and frustration, and it was oddly accented. Wallace thought it sounded Bostonian.
"Uh-huh," Wallace made a snap weapons decision, holstering his P220 and grabbing his Mossberg-590 tactical shotgun, which he was wearing on his back, secured with a leather shoulder strap. He unshouldered the shotgun and racked the pump, sliding the first shell into the chamber. He thumbed the safety, aimed at the nearest Infected at the car, and opened fire. The blast caught three Infected who were bunched up in a group, trying to break through the rear window.
Henry's double-barreled twelve-gauge roared twice, spitting a hail of buckshot into more of the clustered ghouls, clearing off all of the ones in front of the windshield. Carson opened fire as well, taking out the five or six ghouls who were on top of the overturned car.
By then, most of the Infected took their attention off of their desired meal in the car and acknowledged the three armed men who had just come to permanently ruin their day. They ceased their assault on the overturned sedan and rushed the three men, some of them even loping along on all fours.
Wallace emptied another shell into the face of yet another lucky Infected, racking the pump again and bringing the butt of his shotgun smashing into the side of a second Infected's head. Wallace felt something hard and metallic tap him in the back, so he quickly ducked. The twin barrels of Henry's twelve-gauge roared again, sending another hail of buckshot over Wallace's head, tearing into the group of oncoming Infected, taking down at least four, maybe five.
Wallace used up the rest of the shells loaded in his weapon and stowed it away on his back once more, unsheathing his nightstick. The tempered steel police baton ended the lives of many more Infected who tried to have its owner for dinner, crushing skull after skull, snapping bone after bone.
Finally, after what was probably only a minute but what felt like an hour, there were no more Infected left around the overturned sedan. Wallace cautiously approached the driver's window, crouching down and peering inside, giving the glass a light tap with the end of his nightstick. "You in one piece?!" the black sergeant called out.
"I can hear you just fine; you're right next to me," the man inside the overturned car grumbled, rolling his eyes. He was a taller man dressed in a gray business suit. The top of his head was bald, but he had short, curly brown hair all around the fringes. When Wallace finally got a first look at him, the first thought he had was of the character Charles Emerson Winchester III, from M*A*S*H. He had the same features, the same hair, the same voice, and even had the same accent.
"Roll the window down the rest of the way and crawl out," Wallace instructed the man in the sedan.
"Oh, great suggestion. Roll down the window; never would have thought of that!" the Bostonian began to sound impatient, "I'll have you know that the windows happens to be jammed. One of you incompetents severed the power to them from the car battery."
Wallace let out an inward sigh, wondering now if maybe he, Carson, and Henry should have just kept going on their way. "Keep your face shielded, then; I'll break the window."
The man in the sedan unbuckled himself from his seat, falling on his shoulder onto the windshield. He crawled over to the passenger side and nodded for Wallace to proceed. Wallace crouched down and, with a powerful blow, shattered the car window with his nightstick. The glass cracked, spiderwebbed, and finally fell away, cascading to the floor in a million little pieces.
What Wallace did not anticipate was the car alarm. The blow which shattered the window set it off. It was a loud, intermittent but rapid caterwaul which seemed to echo through every street and every alley in the whole district.
The Bostonian man grunted and heaved, freeing his leg and crawling back over to the driver's side.
In the distance, there was a loud, collective, growling roar. Others had heard the alarm as well. Wallace's mind flashed back to the grounds of General Hospital, when Carson had accidentally fired a shotgun shell into an idle car, setting off the alarm. The entire horde of Infected swarming the two sergeants had broken off and made a beeline straight for the car, somehow drawn to the high-pitched, wailing car alarm. It did not take a psychic to predict what was going to happen next.
"We're about to get a lot of company!" Wallace shouted, grabbing the Bostonian by the underarms and hauling the businessman out of the overturned sedan, "We gotta move, now!"
"No, really, that's alright; I was just planning on hanging around for the damn picnic!" the Bostonian snapped.
"Unless your ass wants to get booted right back into that car, I'd keep your mouth shut for the next year," Carson said in reply, his voice quiet and indifferent. The Bostonian could tell that the veteran sergeant was only partially joking.
"Anyone have a weapon they could spare, then? I apologize, but I need something other than my bare hands; my magical fingernail-swords have not yet grown in," the Bostonian said, speaking in a smooth, condescending manner. Wallace found himself liking this man less and less.
"Reg, toss him your P220!" Wallace shouted over to his friend as the four men started to run, sprinting as fast as they could away from the overturned sedan which was pulling in Infected from all directions.
"You know how to shoot, smartass?" Carson rasped, unholstering his sidearm and throwing it over to the Bostonian.
The New England man caught the weapon in mid-air with his left hand, sliding a new clip into the chamber and pulling back the loading mechanism with a single, swift motion. "We'll soon find out, won't we?"
The horde of Infected came into view. Dozens of the disheveled, ragged, bloodied creatures poured from the alleys and streets, drawn towards the wailing alarm like bees to a honeycomb. Already, there were ghouls swarming all over the overturned car, kicking, clawing, and banging away at it, driven mad by the high-pitched beeping.
The Infected running down 24th Avenue from the direction in which the four men were heading instead turned their attention towards the quartet of potential meals. Unfortunately for them, the so-called meals had guns, and they knew how to use them.
Wallace quickly pushed another round of shells from his ammunition belt and into his Mossberg. He thumbed the safety, racked the pump, and opened fire, catching two Infected—one right through the head and into a second's chest.
Henry fired off both of the barrels of his twelve-gauge, aiming for clumped groups of Infected which were close enough together to be able to be taken down with a single well-aimed blast. The older man opened up the breech, ejecting the two spent shells and quickly pushing in a new pair, snapping the shotgun closed and picking a new target.
The four men kept up a steady stream of fire as they sprinted down the street, but there were roughly fifty or so Infected which were still hot on their heels. The car alarm faded into the background as the four men survivors made some headway, but the Infected kept right on their tail like hungry bloodhounds. Deep down, Sergeant Wallace knew that it was impossible to outrun the Infected indefinitely—they simply were no longer affected by Human limits such as weariness or fatigue. If they smelled a meal, they would keep right on chasing it until either they caught and ate it, got killed in turn, or if Hell had a blizzard.
Carson stumbled suddenly, collapsing to the asphalt on all fours. He began to cough, falling into another fit of deep, chesty hacking and spitting. He vomited in between coughs, sending a stream of greenish-brown bile splattering onto the road.
"Reg!" Wallace called out to his friend, stowing his Mossberg away on his back and hurrying over to his friend, picking up Carson's discarded Mossberg and slinging it over his shoulder, crossing the two shotguns on his back in a rough X. He then grabbed Carson by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet, throwing an arm over his shoulder, holding Carson up.
"Jerome?" Carson murmured in between coughs, "I—think—I'm—sick…"
"See, now, it's that kind of attention to detail that must have gotten you through the academy," the Bostonian grunted over the gunfire. "Speaking of which, officer, your sick friend can no longer run; he is only going to slow us down. Now I know that you would probably plug me if I suggested abandoning him, so how about we do the next best thing and find someplace to hole out until he can move again!"
"Smartass has a point, officer," Henry agreed, speaking up as he fired away both barrels of his twelve-gauge for the umpteenth time. He broke off, reaching into his shoulder bag for more shells to replace the most recently fired ones. The Bostonian's only response to the older man's jab was a simple sniff.
Wallace looked over the buildings and finally caught sight of an apartment complex half a block or so down the road. "I nominate the apartments; it'll be easier to barricade ourselves in there for a short while than it would in a single-story shop."
"Well, that's settled," Henry nodded, giving the plan its touch of finality.
More Infected began to stream onto 24th Avenue, drawn to the street by the significant presence of Infected already there, still trying to chase down their next four meals.
The four men reached the apartment building without too many more complications. Henry got there first, pushing the doors open with his shoulder and holding it open for the Bostonian and the two cops. Wallace passed Carson over to Henry and quickly pushed the doors back closed, grunting with the effort as he felt the weight of the Infected on the other side trying to break through.
"Upstairs, upstairs!" Henry exclaimed, "We can sack out in one of the rooms up there."
"Go," Wallace gestured towards the stairwell, "Take Reg up with you." As the others complied, Wallace fumbled with the door's lock, quickly latching it and taking a tentative step back, seeing if the door would hold.
It did.
Wallace turned on his heel and sprinted over to and up the stairs of the apartment complex, quickly ascending to the fifth and highest floor, emerging into the hallway, where he saw Henry heading into an already-open apartment. There was a single gunshot, and then silence.
Wallace headed into the apartment and found a dead Infected on the floor. "Get the window," the sergeant said to the Bostonian, who—eyeing the dead body with a great deal of distaste—actually obeyed, crossing over and opening one of the windows. "I never got your name," Wallace said to the Bostonian as he dragged the corpse over to the window, lifted it up, and heaved it out, quickly closing it before he could hear the sickening sound of the body hitting the pavement below.
"Charles," was all the Bostonian said in reply. "Last names are not of much use anymore."
"Charles? You don't say," Wallace chuckled to himself, thinking again of the character of the same name from M*A*S*H. The black sergeant locked the window, and then headed over to the door and sealed it as well.
A collective sigh of relief rose up through the apartment as the four men dropped their gear and flopped down onto the sofa and chairs in the main room. Wallace helped Carson into the bathroom, where the other sergeant spent close to the next hour retching his guts out into the toilet. Luckily, the place still had working plumbing.
"What the fuck is wrong with me, Jerome?" Carson managed to sigh after the vomiting stopped. Wallace had taken him into the master bedroom, laying him down on the bed.
"I'm sure it's nothing," Wallace murmured. He broke out into a grin, "Hell we've survived worse, right?"
"Right," Carson smiled as well, having no choice but to agree. "Are there any blankets in this place? I feel…cold…" the sergeant broke off into what seemed like another coughing fit, but he only coughed four or five times before stopping.
Wallace's brow furrowed, his mind flashing back to the foodstore, where he had heard someone say something eerily similar before…
"Y-Yeah…" Wallace nodded quickly, ducking out of the room. "Yeah, I'll hook you up, aight? Get some rest or I'll knock you out and force you to sleep." The black sergeant withdrew from the room, heading back into the main room. He said nothing. He sank down into the couch and let out a long sigh, holding his head in his hands.
"He's got it, doesn't he?" Henry asked, quickly putting the two and two together.
"Mm-hm," Wallace grunted.
"You want me to do it?"
"No," Wallace shook his head. "I can do it."
Night quickly fell over the city. The moans of the Infected were omnipresent all throughout the streets outside. That strange, mysterious atmosphere of night life the city had once possessed was gone, vanished. The city was eerily silent.
The thing that had been lying motionless in the queen-sized bed opened its eyes, taking in its surroundings. It was in a dark, small room, lying on something soft. It sniffed, flaring its nostrils as it caught whiff of a scent. There was food nearby, maybe even in the same room. The thing thrashed and leaped out of the bed, dropping into a predatory stance. Green bile dribbled down its chin and a low growl rose from its throat.
The Infected caught sight of a shadow, a silhouette, a figure sitting in a chair. He was broad-shouldered, dark-skinned, bald—a perfect meal. The Infected took one step towards the figure in the chair, but the dark-skinned man had been ready for this. In his hands he clutched a dark metal object, which he was pointing right towards the Infected's head. His mouth moved and he spoke, saying something. The Infected did not understand what the dark-skinned man had said—all it heard was a jumble of indistinct, meaningless sounds. It took another step forward, reaching its arms out towards the dark-skinned man, and opened its mouth, getting ready to bite down.
There was a loud explosion and the end of the dark metal object which the dark-skinned man was clutching spat fire, which was the last sight the thing that had once been Reginald Carson, sergeant of the 13th Precinct police force, ever saw.
Sergeant Wallace felt numb as he fired a shell into the head of his oldest friend. He had been waiting in that chair all night long, sitting by the bedside, waiting for his friend to turn. He had not told Carson of his suspicions that he was Infected, but he had had those suspicions for a while. They had been pretty much completely confirmed when the other sergeant had started throwing up green and complaining of being cold, especially outside in the mid-August summer heat.
"I'm sorry, brother," Wallace murmured again, repeating himself.
The black sergeant pulled the blanket off of the bed and threw it over Carson's corpse, making sure it was covered. It was as much of a funeral as his oldest friend would receive. Wallace turned and pushed his way out of the master bedroom, joining Henry and Charles in the main room.
Wordlessly, he tossed Carson's Mossberg and ammunition to Henry, and then gave the Carson's nightstick to the Bostonian. "He won't be needing them anymore," Wallace muttered, keeping his emotions in check.
Charles, for the first time, was completely silent, having nothing to say. The cold, cynical expression which had been ever present in his eyes and face was still there, but it was not as razor-edged as before. Wallace decided to give the man a chance; maybe he would prove himself to be a human being sometime in the future.
"What do we do now?" Henry asked, breaking the silence. The older man had discarded his double-barreled twelve-gauge in favor of Carson's superior Mossberg-590, and was slinging it over his shoulder, as if he were ready to leave.
"Same as before," Wallace declared, standing back up. "We go to the Sidewinder, resupply, and pick up the radio," the black sergeant pulled on his gloves and picked up his nightstick and shotgun from the sofa, sliding the tempered steel police baton into its sheath and slinging his Mossberg over his shoulder. He slapped a fresh mag into his P220 and pulled back the loading mechanism, completely prepping it for use. He peered through the window, glancing at the star-sprinkled night sky, and then at the cityscape. Fires were still burning all over the city, throwing up great clouds of smoke and smog into the air and casting the skyline in a hellish red glow. "Then we get the fuck out of this goddamn city."
I hate this. The logical and intelligent decision would be to spend the rest of the night in this place...but that I can't do, not with Reg lying in the next room… It's only been two days, and I'm already getting tired of the world. I had to kill a woman back at the foodstore near General Hospital because I did not climb that ladder fast enough, and now I have just killed my best and oldest friend. I had always hoped that Reggie Carson would put me out of my misery in order to avoid my becoming the Infecteds' next meal…Never once had I ever considered the inverse possibility, that I would be the one who would have to kill him. I do not want to die, not yet…but if I do, if I don't survive this ordeal…I won't miss this place.
- J. W.