Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel by James Carlson Read Free Book Online Page B

unnerving feeling that he might be needing them more than any day in the job so far.
    The briefing room was literally rammed. Every chair was taken and people standing filled the rest of the free space. Among the crowd, there were officers who had made a career from sitting behind a desk and hadn’t been on the streets in years. Their faces were a mixture of resentment and nervousness at having been called into work like this along with everyone else. The worry in their eyes at the prospect of having once again to perform the basic role of a police officer was clearly evident.
    Muz didn’t even recognise half the faces in the room, and the numbers on their epaulettes showed many of them to be from other boroughs. The noise was raucous, as everyone was asking everyone else what was happening and no one seemed to have an answer.
    “There’s a riot,” he heard someone say amid the general babbling.
    “...local officers killed already.”
    “...needed for containment but the cordons aren’t...”
    “Chief Inspector Ops is having a shit fit, ‘cos no one thought to...”
    “Mate, can you believe all this?” Kieran, a lad from his own team, said to him. “The shit has proper hit the fan.”
    “Right, shut up and listen,” a voice shouted above the din. It was Superintendent Lake, a stern man on a good day.
    The room fell almost immediately silent and everyone’s attention was focused on him, waiting to be given some clue as to why they were all there.
    “Thank yo u to everyone for coming in,” the ranking officer began. “I won’t mince my words and I won’t lie to you. At this point in time, we haven’t much idea as to what has caused the current situation. All we can say for sure is that something has given rise to the localised group hysteria that is currently in progress in the Mill Hill area. At this stage, what initiated the disorder is of little practical concern. We need to put an end to it, before it spirals beyond control.”
    Just then, a fat police officer from the IBO office came into the room and murmured something to the Superintendent. The man responded with an angry curse and left the room. No sooner had he stepped out the door, than the chatter began again, even louder than before.
    “Looks like the Super Nintendo is about to chew somebody’s head off,” someone at the back of the room remarked.
    “Right, listen in,” Inspector Carver shouted, taking up where his superior had left off, and relaying to the room a brief summary of the initial CAD details.
    “I’ve been to some griefy domestics but that takes the piss,” someone muttered.
    Normally, a comment like that would have got a good laugh from the room, but not now. People were too on edge.
    “Although no firearms have been used by any members of the public or even seen,” the Inspector continued, “this has been declared an active shooter incident. It is not at this time believed to be of a terrorist nature. However, a number of individuals have been identified, by borough CCTV operators, as having killed members of the public and are continuing to take further victims.”
    That new information caused the room to erupt with frenzied voices.
    “Settle down,” a Sergeant shouted, and noise in the room dropped to just a few nervous whispers.
    “There is nothing to suggest ,” Carver began to shout, “that the identified suspects are working together, other than the sheer improbability of more than one unrelated incident of this nature transpiring in the same vicinity at the same time.”
    A lar ge map of the borough had been sellotaped over the projector screen. On it, a section of Mill Hill covering several streets had been ringed in red marker pen, with another ring in blue pen around that.
    “The red line ,” the Inspector continued, “represents the inner cordon we are currently attempting to establish and maintain. TSG officers and those who are level two trained are tasked with manning this perimeter, attempting to