What Zombies Fear (Book 2): The Maxists by Kirk Allmond Read Free Book Online Page A

holstered the Halligan and shouldered his rifle. The two underlings cleared the entry way. They started way back from the door, taking small sections of the room. They stepped up, each step towards the doorway giving them a larger view into the room. They knelt on either side of the door, as Charlie stepped through to clear the blind corner just inside the door.
     
    “ Well done boys, that was textbook. Keep your wits about you. Garrett, tell me what you sense.”
     
    “ Nothing has been in this room in a long time. No tracks in the dust. I don’t hear anything walking around, Sir,” said Garrett.
     
    “ And what else Johnson?” Bookbinder quizzed the men. He never missed an opportunity to drive home their training.
     
    “ I don’t see anything moving through the windows. I think we’re good.”
     
    “ Dammit Johnson, use your nose.”
     
    “ I can’t smell anything. My nose is stuffy,” replied Johnson.
     
    “ You should quit smoking, it kills your senses. Would you smoke if it clouded your vision?” He asked again.
     
    “ Yes, Sir.” Said Johnson, “I mean no Sir—I mean, I should quit, Sir. I would not smoke if it clouded my vision, Sir.”
     
    “ Alright,” Bookbinder said. “I smell rotten meat. I smell stupid zombies in here. They’re not in this room, if they were that smell would have assaulted our noses, but they’re in here somewhere.”
     
    Once the lesson was over they moved as a unit through the building clearing room by room. After the first room when it became clear that the building wasn’t full of infected, Charlie let his rifle hang and once again drew the halligan.
     
    They’d come in via the police entrance, not the front door of the building. Charlie opened the door to the hallway and took a long smell. The stench of months old flesh was stronger in the hallway. Five steps down the hallway there were doors on the right and left. Charlie held up two fingers and then pointed to Reineer and himself. He pointed to Dalton, Hostetler and Johnson and pointed at the door across the hallway.
     
    The team split into two groups and on Charlie’s mark each quietly turned the knob and opened their door. Charlie stepped into the gloomy room to see a corpse in a police uniform turn its head towards him. It was wearing glasses and still had its patrolman’s hat on. Its eyes locked on to him. They were milky and white but the hunger stood out in them. The creature walked forward into its desk and fell face-first onto a pile of folders. With the zombie bent over the desk like that, Charlie quickly closed the distance and lodged his halligan into its brain.
     
    Reineer pulled an old office chair away and sent it rolling over towards a giant metal book case that ran the length of the side wall. The mostly empty shelves were painted the same beige color as everything else in the building. A few trophies, a couple awards and a family picture were the only things on the first half; Charlie noted a small selection of paperbacks filling about half of a single shelf towards the end of the room.
     
    The two of them laid the patrolman down on the blue carpet-tiled floor and went to work. Reineer removed the utility belt from the officer, putting a Kimber 1911 frame .45 caliber pistol and four magazines into his backpack. Next he removed a pair of handcuffs from the rear pouch and slid a Maglite and collapsible baton off the belt, still in their holsters. The flashlight and baton and hand gun holster went into his pack.
     
    Charlie poked its stomach with his finger.
     
    “ Cheap body armor. This is the everyday wear stuff; it’ll stop a three-eighty, but won’t do anything for seven-six-two. Plus, it’s unlikely we’ll ever get the smell out.” Go check on the others, I’ll poke around here and see if there’s anything useful.
     
    When Reineer was gone, Bookbinder set to work checking the man’s pockets. He found a set of keys in the front pocket. The keychain said “World’s