Last Stand on Zombie Island by Christopher L. Eger Read Free Book Online

enough to unhitch his shotgun and tell Spud, still handcuffed in the back of the car, to stay put.
    Just before he arrived, Dispatch advised that the department was ‘communications code red,’ which meant the network was having issues and to try to maintain contact through cellphones and landlines as much as possible. With that in mind, backup did not seem very likely. Nevertheless, he still called into Dispatch and let them know he had arrived on-scene.
    The scene he witnessed amazed him. The bodies, the piles of book bags, shoes and jackets were almost too much to process and he fought the urge to slow down and take it all in. He swallowed hard, pushing it down inside to avoid clouding his mind.
    He ran down the hallway to the sounds of yelling, crashing, and a door slamming.
    When Durham rounded the corner, he saw a young girl in pigtails lying face down on the tile. Her leg was twitching and she moaned softly. He laid the shotgun down beside her, took a knee, and rolled her over.
    “GS5 to Dispatch, be advised I am 23 here and have multiple causalities. Send Rescue I am holding my position here with…”
    The classroom door opening up next to him cut his transmission off. A man in his mid-thirties, wearing deck shoes, cargo shorts, and a torn t-shirt stood in the doorway.
    “She’s schizoid officer…don’t fool with her,” cargo-short man said through the three-day beard strewn across a face that was tanned darker than leather.
    Durham immediately concluded both that the stranger was not a teacher and stuck out in this situation like a sore thumb.
    “Stay where you are, don’t come any closer,” Durham ordered with a hand outstretched.
    “No, really, she is smooth crazy as hell—she attacked us,” the stranger said.
    “Listen to him,” said an unseen young female over the stranger’s shoulder.
    Durham looked down at the pigtailed girl below him as he turned her over. One hand cradled her head and the other was still on the mic of his radio. The girl had a broken nose, split lips, at least one broken tooth, and bruises all over the bottom of her face. Her hair was matted and sticky with thick drying blood. Her throat was purple and swollen. Whoever had done this was a monster.
    Durham depressed the hand mic on his radio once more, “GS5, Dispatch: be advised I am 26 here and need priority assistance,” Durham said giving the ten codes that meant Detaining subject, expedite.
    He replaced the mic on the clip on his shoulder and laid the little girl’s head back down on the ground. Reaching slowly for his shotgun, he never took his eyes off cargo-shorts-man in the doorway.
    “Step back into the room, sir, and let me see your hands,” Durham said firmly.
    The man’s eyes went wide and he seemed to Durham to have a shocked look on his face.
    “Really, officer, this is not what you think. She attacked us ,” the man protested.
    As he walked backwards into the room with his palms up, he continued to talk while Durham brought the shotgun up to his chest.
    “What is your name, and what are you doing here?” Durham asked through hard lips.
    “Billy Harris, and I just came up here to get my son. I heard there was some sort of riot or shooting or something and I just wanted to get my boy. My daughter is here with me, too,” the man said.
    Durham saw the man’s daughter for the first time as Billy backed into the room and the police sergeant followed in his wake. She was a slender teenager with blonde hair, highlighted with some sort of extra color. She looked as if she was bugged out to say the least, and was busily biting her fingernails.
    “He is telling the truth,” the teenage girl said again, pronouncing every syllable.
    Durham lowered the shotgun and asked Billy for his ID as he turned and locked the door to the wrecked classroom, closing the three new acquaintances in together. He tried to call Dispatch again on his radio to verify that Billy did not have any wants or warrants but he could not