stakeout chapter 6

The Old Range Building

Sunnydale County Sheriff's Dept. Academy

September 10, 1998

Saturday, 12:30 PM

Tim Harris steered the GMC Yukon into it's designated parking slot and shifted the transmission into park. Looking over to the passenger seat, he saw that Gabriel Martin was slumped against the door, his head against the glass. The Blue Team leader clearly looked wiped out.

Feeling the engine turn off, Gabriel sat up and looked over at Tim, then back at Scott Kelly, who looked just as tired. Seeing that they had arrived, Scott opened the truck's door, almost falling out before finally standing up straight. Pulling his bag from the truck, Scott slowly walked into the range building.

Seeing the Suburban pull up next to them, Tim and Gabriel watched as the three members of Gold Team got out and walked toward the building, their exhaustion apparent in their slow walk.

Gabriel ran his hand through his hair and sighed. Tim kept looking at him until Gabriel breathed out one word.

"Zombies."

Tim sat silently, waiting for the words he knew were coming.

"Freaking zombies. I knew stuff was weird in this town, but zombies..."

Tim looked forward through the windshield, absently patting his jacket pockets.

"Vampires I understand. Heck, we kill about a dozen a month in this town. But freaking zombies..."

Tim found the cigarettes he was looking for, putting one between his lips and brought up his Zippo lighter before realizing he was still in the truck and couldn't light up there.

"Those poor kids..."

That was the crux of the matter. For the first time the Stakeout Unit had failed. Humans had died and Stakeout had failed to prevent it.

*****

Blue Team had been cruising near Adams and First around 11:00 PM when the calls started to come in on the Sunnydale Police Dept. radio net. Strange beings walking the streets, attacking people. The radio net was rapidly overloading, most of the calls with the three beeps signaling danger.

They immediately hit the lights and sirens, rushing toward the nearest danger call. Gold Team also called in to take another of the calls. SPD Dispatch never acknowledged, there were so overwhelmed taking 911 calls and trying to assign them to the units on the streets.

The sight that met Blue Team's eyes at the first location was something that would be impossible to forget.

As the Yukon skidded to a stop, they saw four figures clustered around something in the enclosed parking lot.

Above the growls of the creatures were the sounds of human screaming.

Moving in what felt like slow motion, Gabriel jumped from the truck and ran toward them, his Beretta pistol in one hand and a police flashlight in the other.

A teenaged boy who looked to be about sixteen years old was trying to fend off the creatures, a smashed cell phone at his feet. As Gabriel rapidly got closer, he saw one of the creatures grab the boy's head and with an audible crunch break his neck.

Screaming "Sheriffs, hands up!!!" Gabriel was still a distance away when he saw the source of the screams; a teenaged girl, about the same age as the boy.

He was but three steps away when three of the creatures jumped on top of the girl.

Gabriel couldn't fire for fear of hitting the girl so he brought the flashlight up like a club, the light illuminating human features that were grey and rotting.

He brought the flashlight down hard; the skull of the first creature shattered like an overripe melon, dropping the creature into a flopping twitching pile.

Swinging the flashlight backhand, Gabriel caught the second creature on the temple, but barely rocked it back. He was reaching back for another swing when Scott Kelly beat him to it, booting the creature in the chest like a place kicker going for the extra point, the crackle of ribs breaking sounding like a bundle of sticks snapping, throwing it back off the girl .

Gabriel was turning toward the last creature on the girl when something suddenly grabbed him around his chest in a bear hug, yanking him up and back. He could smell the stench of rotting flesh on the creature holding him.

Thinking fast, Gabriel swung his free arm over his opposite shoulder, jamming his Beretta into the creature's face. Firing once twice three times, the pistol reports deafening, until the creature fell back onto the ground, dragging Gabriel down with him, it's face and the back of it's head blown away.

Pulling himself up, Gabriel started to move toward the last creature and the struggling girl when Tim Harris stepped up to the pair and pushed the muzzle of a shotgun against the creature's head. With a loud blast it's head disintegrated, the gruesome spray of steel shot, flesh and bone going safely past the girl. Tim pumped in a new shell as he turned, aimed at the creature Scott was struggling with and as the other deputy jumped clear shot it in the head as well.

Gabriel dropped down besides the girl, dimly aware of a third shotgun blast as Tim shot the head-smashed creature.

The girl was in bad shape; gasping through a partially crushed windpipe, bleeding from multiple wounds on her neck and chest, bright red blood spraying from her mouth with each breath; sign of a pierced lung, probably by a broken rib.

Glancing to the side, Gabriel saw Scott bent over the teenaged boy. Scott looked up and shook his head; the boy was dead.

Looking back down at the girl, Gabriel saw that her eyes were fixed on something, the silver cross he had taken to wearing around his neck. Her hand had weakly reached toward it; Gabriel immediately took her hand in his and brought it up to the cross, wrapping her hand around it.

Gabriel knew there was nothing they could do; the internal injuries were too severe. Watching as the girl's breathing grew weaker, Gabriel was about to pick her up to take her to the truck when faint words stopped him.

"Our Father... who art in heaven... hallow be thy name..."

In a weak voice, broken by gasps, the girl was saying the Lord's Prayer.

Stunned for a moment, Gabriel quickly joined her, saying the prayer along with her. When the prayer ended, the girl smiled faintly at Gabriel, took a deep breath and slowly released it. No other sound came; her hand fell from his neck, breaking the delicate chain, cross still in her hand as the arm fell to her chest.

Just as Gabriel was to about to pick her up, to start CPR, do something, anything, there was a bright flash.

Looking up, the three deputies saw the dead bodies wink out of existence; first the creatures, then the dead boy, then as they looked back at her, the girl.

On his knees, Gabriel looked at the empty space before him in disbelief. There was nothing on the ground in front of him... except a broken necklace with a bloodstained silver cross.

*****

The dead boy and girl had not been the only incident they had rolled on; both Blue and Gold Teams had responded to several calls, but they had all been the same. There would be dead or injured citizens, monsters that attacked them as soon as the team got there, and bodies that would disappear in a flash of light as soon as the monsters were killed and flashed out of existence as well.

In the truck, Gabriel looked over at Tim, his eyes fixing on the cigarette hanging unlit from the other deputies' lips. "Give me one of those," Gabriel said shortly. Silently, Tim gave him a smoke and fired up his Zippo, lighting Gabriel's cigarette before his own.

Gabriel coughed a couple times before settling down, puffing on his smoke before speaking again. "You knows what the worst part of this is? There are no bodies, nothing to bury. The only reason we know it actually happened are these." Gabriel held up the broken necklace and a pink plastic wallet of the kind carried by teen girls, found on the ground in the first parking lot. On the outside pocket was a strip of photo booth pics, showing the girl and boy laughing, hugging, kissing.

Both men sat for a minute before Gabriel asked what was weighing heavily on his mind. "How do you deal with watching kids die?"

Tim glanced over at Gabriel. "That wasn't the first dead teen you've seen on the job," stated the older man.

"No, it's the first teen death I've seen happen. Everyone else was after the fact," replied Gabriel.

The former soldier thought for a moment. "You can do one of two things when dealing with death. The first is to shove all those thoughts and memories into a compartment in your head and try not to think about it."

"So repression is number one?" asked Gabriel. Tim nodded. "What's number two?"

"Getting drunk. That's my plan for tonight." Tim opened the door, got out of the truck and stood on the sidewalk until Gabriel got out. The two men then walked into the building.

Sergeant Gabriel Martin, SCSD Stakeout Unit Commander, had to make his report to Sheriff Greer tonight. After that was done, trying out Plan Two sounded awfully good to him.

end stakeout chapter 6