Down the Road: The Fall of Austin by Bowie Ibarra Read Free Book Online

called over to him, “You’re not done, man. Stay on your
perp. I’ll get you some leg shackles.”
    Mike was right. The perp was attempting to
stand, rolling up on his own face and rising ass first. Had the
situation not been so intense, Roland might have laughed. Instead,
he rolled the perp back on his belly with a well-placed boot.
    The CB buzzed. “Dispatch to 864. All
ambulances are on calls. No one can get there for another thirty
minutes. Over.”
    Mike’s face turned sour. What the hell are we
going to do for thirty minutes?
    He knew they certainly could not continue
tazing the madmen for thirty minutes. They would die. At least they
should, if nature held its rational course.
    But the world was somehow becoming quite
irrational. It had somehow escaped his perception since the
situation at the apartment, and had been growing ever since.
Multiplying exponentially. Nature was altering, twisting. Wading in
the chaos, Mike had a moment outside of the skirmish that was
unfolding in front of him to listen to the city. Gauging its
heartbeat. Feeling its sleepless and relentless energy.
    The crackling of the tazers faded, and
Officer Mike Runyard’s aural perception began to focus on the
sounds all around him.
    Distant screaming.
    Eight gunshots from somewhere south.
    A car wrecking in the distance.
    Townies yelling and running on the
sidewalks.
    Help needed all around him.
    Two arms grabbed him by the shirt, shaking
him from his global focus. He yelped in fear as he looked at the
face of a young woman.
    “Please, help me,” she cried. “My boyfriend
wants to kill me.”
    Mike quickly noticed the large bite on her
arm and a missing ear dripping blood on her neck and shoulder as
she pointed in the opposite direction. Mike turned and saw her
boyfriend in hot pursuit. Mike recognized the face—not by name—but
by the symptoms.
    “Get in the vehicle,” Mike said, opening the
back door of his cruiser and tossing the girl inside.
    He turned to his fellow officers. He knew he
needed to try to take control of this bizarre situation.
    “Roland, protect the suspects and get them to
the car!”
    Roland soccer-kicked the cuffed madman in
front of him, and he momentarily lay prone.
    “What about us?” Derek asked, still firing
his tazer.
    “Wait until we clear the suspects.”
    Roland assisted Charlie in standing up and he
came to his feet without too much effort. But Charlie’s friend was
like a sand bag. “Shit,” Roland said, dropping the perp. “Mike! I
think we lost one!”
    Mike knew only very basic CPR. Knowing the
girl was secured in his vehicle, he ran to help. He leaned in and
placed his ear by the mouth of the motionless man. No breathing.
Mike used his fingers to estimate where to position his hands on
the ribcage and began pumping on the chest. After a few times, he
stopped, then leaned in and placed his ear by the man’s mouth
again. He repeated the process.
    Derek picked up on a pattern. All the people
who were acting strange and crazed, from the family at the
apartment to the people who started the night’s issue, had one
thing in common: They had been bitten.
    Mike was about to administer mouth to mouth
when Derek screamed, “Mike! Wait! Don’t!”
    Mike froze.
    “Mike, I think it’s the bites,” Derek said.
“The bites are infecting people with something.”
    “ I knew it ,” Mike whispered, pulling
away from the dead man.
    Roland and Clark looked at each other
uneasily. They both then looked at Roland’s bitten arm.
    Derek’s theory was confirmed when the body on
the ground—the same body Mike was about to provide mouth to
mouth— twitched . All four officers turned and watched as the
man’s eyes slowly opened. He gagged twice before coughing up blood.
He attempted to rise.
    “We’ve got to get ya’ll to the hospital,”
Mike said. “I’ll take Charlie and the girl.” He then turned to
Officer Clark, who was still tazing the creature on the ground.
“Clark, you should drive.