New Dead Awakening

New Dead Awakening -



If he had had the time to think about it , Cody Briggs would have determined that it was around lunch time on Sunday that his world had begun to really fall apart. Perhaps it had been unravelling for some time in silence, but it was Sunday afternoon when it began to look as though things may not work themselves out in the end. He awoke hungover and, skipping breakfast, had dragged his feet into the early morning sunshine and to his squad car which had been left in his driveway overnight. After less than a half hour on patrol, he realized that the CB radio hadn't been quiet for more than two minutes, which was unusual for a Sunday. Shortly thereafter, events began to snowball with a momentum in which Officer Cody Briggs was helplessly swept along.

First, he responded to a call out in the low-rental area of town where a young lady had been attacked by an unknown assailant who fled the scene before he could arrive. She had been quite frantic when he got there and seemed to be babbling nonsense. But from what he could piece together, he figured it must have been some random bit of violence initiated by a madman. Apparently, the young lady in question had been minding her own business, hanging out the laundry when she noticed a strange man standing across the court. No words were spoken and she claimed to have never seen him before, but for some inexplicable reason he lunged across the court at superhuman speed (her words) and sank his teeth into her arm at the elbow. Cory himself could attest to the ferocity of the bite; A full three inch strip of flesh had been peeled away and hung there flapping off the elbow joint which was now clearly visible. Fortunately for the victim, her attacker somehow managed to miss the artery and the loss of blood would be manageable until the paramedics arrived.

As he waited, he tried his best to calm the poor girl down and helped her over to the curb where he suggested she try to keep her arm elevated and take deep steady breaths. Once he saw she could handle these tasks, he called headquarters on his shoulder mounted walkie as an ambulance siren insistently wailed across the still morning air.

" Karen, I need you to send out an APB to all available units in the Elmsdale/Emerson Lake area to be on the lookout for a Caucasian male, about five foot ten, dark hair,dark pants and a light shirt." He paused for a moment and looked back at the girl's mangled arm. " He's most likely covered in blood and should be considered dangerous. Copy?"

When he released the button on the radio, all that came back was the empty and harsh crackle of static.

" Karen? You there? Copy? "

The radio crackled into life, and Karen from dispatch came on, sounding more than a little frazzled.

" Yeah, Code, I'm here and I copy. It's a freakin' monkey house down here right now. The calls haven't stopped, not to mention the walk-ins. Holding is packed to capacity and we've had to herd about a dozen or so detainees down to the interrogation rooms. What the hell is going on out there? "

" Who knows...full moon fever maybe ? " Just then , the ambulance came around the corner in full emergency mode and screeched to a halt in a spray of gravel near Cody's squad car. " Oh, gotta go Karen, my ambulance is here. Get that APB out would ya ? Over."

" Copy Code. Take care out there. Out." and with that, Karen disappeared amidst another crackle of static. Cody briskly made his way around the front of his car to where a couple of burly paramedics were already attending to the girl's tattered arm. When the one whose name tag identified him as Devreaux noticed Cody's presence, he immediately rose from his haunches to get the details while his partner continued dressing the victim's wound.

" So what is this ? " he asked, " Pitbull ?"

" Nope...person." replied Cody.

An expression of equal parts shock and confusion passed over Devreaux' face and it seemed to take him a moment or two to process what he had just been told.

" Wait..wha..you mean a person did this ?!"

" It would appear so," Cody replied. " Reasons unknown, I guess. I'd like to catch up with him before he tries anything like this again though, so if you don't need me for anything else..."

" No, no, we're good , I think." But something in the paramedic's manner aroused Cody's curiosity. A kind of distracted concern that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

" Everything OK ? " he asked.

" Oh...yeah." answered Devreaux as he gave his head a minute shake. " It's just weird is all. My sister-in-law works in admissions at the Farnsworth Hospital...you know, a couple hours north? Anyways, she was talkin' to the wife last night and made mention of there being about half a dozen cases like this up there yesterday. I was just thinkin' maybe there's a connection or something. Like maybe a serial biter or somethin' ." Again he gave his head one of those little shakes. " Weird !"

" Yeah, maybe." Cody said. " Either way, I really gotta get going. Take care." He walked back around to the driver's side of his car and slumped himself into the seat. He leaned his head back against the head rest and shut his eyes briefly, taking in slow measured breaths as he did so. Gonna be one of those days and boy, am I not in the mood for it. he thought to himself. But just power through it, you can do it.

As he opened his eyes, he took one more deep breath and started the car. "Giddy-up." he muttered to himself.

And all this before his morning cup of coffee.

* * * * * *

The next forty-five minutes were spent cruising the neighborhood in search of the mystery attacker, during which time, the sun's powerful rays were at first diminished and then vanquished by a dense bank of clouds which seemed to drain the color from the urban scenery. The dulling of the sun seemed to improve his hangover slightly, enough to focus more clearly on the task at hand, anyways. He scanned every alley and doorway within his immediate line of sight, trying to deduce the attacker's most likely route of escape while keeping an ear sharp to the incessant chatter from the radio. It seemed pretty hopeless, really ; So many nooks and crannies, so many faceless people milling around, so many shadows. He pulled up to a stop sign and was in the middle of deciding which way to turn when a beat-to-shit muscle car blew through the intersection well in excess of the limit causing Cody to abandon his train of thought and begin pursuit.

As soon as he flicked on his lights, the speeder pulled off to the side which was fortunate since Cody was not in the mood for a high speed chase. He pulled up behind him, radioed the plate number back to dispatch, and, grabbing his citation book stepped out of the squad car. As he approached the speeder, he tried to peer in the back window to determine how many passengers were therein, but his view was blocked by what appeared to be the contents of a small apartment. What's this now? Cody thought to himself, Kinda looks like maybe we got some kind of burglary action. If nothing else I'm gonna hafta write him up for obstructed view.

He got to the driver's side and was surprised when he saw that the driver looked nothing like the criminal he was expecting. If anything, he looked more like a scared, scrawny and somewhat odd-looking kid. But Cody had been deceived by looks before in this line of work, and realizing that people rarely drove so recklessly for any noble reason, he proceeded by the book.

" Could I see your license and registration, Sir? " he asked.

The kid looked visibly shaken as he fumbled around in the glove box for the requested papers. As he did so, Cody made a cursory examination of the car's contents. Most of what he saw was electronic in nature; Computers, short wave radios, and a variety of other gadgets at whose function Cody could only guess. Finally after emptying the glove box of a slew of receipts and fast food napkins, the kid retreived his registration and then moved on to fish his license from his wallet.

" Quite a bunch of stuff you got here. " Cody casually remarked as he waited.

" Oh...yeah," he said as he passed Cody the license with trembling hands, " Just getting out of the city for a bit."

" Uh-huh. And whereabouts are you going that you need to be in such a hurry?"

" Out to the hills. My folks own a cabin up there and I figured I'd like to get away. You know... to wait. I'm really sorry I was going so fast, I didn't mean to. "

That comment sent up a few red flags for Cody; What was the kid getting away from? What did he have to wait for, or wait out ? As the plot thickened, Cody decided it would be best to get this guy from behind the wheel where he would be less apt to make a break.

" Could I get you to shut off the car and step out for me?" he asked although it wasn't really a question.

The kid did as he was told. As he stood on the street beside his open car door, he was continuosly scanning in all directions, as if looking for an unseen pursuer. Cody was by now certain that this guy was up to no good and based on his skittish behaviour most likely under the influence of some kind of chemicals.

" All right, then..." he paused while looking at the license for a name, " Byron Ogilve, here's where we stand. I saw you flying down a busy street in the middle of the morning, I find your car packed full of electronic equipment, and you're acting extremely nervous. I gotta level with ya, it all seems pretty suspicious to me. So let's just take it from the beginning and see if we can make sense of this, right? Right. Where are you coming from?"

" Home."

" Where's home?"

" Up on Pearl Crescent."

Cody knew the place. It was the epitome of a high class neighborhood. Sprawling luxury homes that stood upon deep emerald landscaping at the ends of winding asphalt driveways. The type of area where all the neighbors knew (and competed against) each other. No doubt this lad came from money, and a good deal of it, but that wasn't an excuse to ignore the law, and from the wide glassy eyes and trembling hands, he could tell Byron knew it too.

" OK, so where is it you were headed to ?" This was a pretty common police tactic; Repeat the same question and try to catch the perp in a lie.

" Out to my folks' in the country. I'm sorry, Sir, but I'm in kind of a hurry. Any chance you could just write me up and let me be on my way ?"

" Well, not just yet, I have to hear back from downtown to see if you have any tickets or warrants or the like, and make sure everything here is on the up and up, and then I'll give you your ticket." He flashed a grin at Brandon to show him that he was a personable kind of cop, but the kid seemed too distracted by what was or wasn't going on around him to catch it. " Anyways, what's with all this stuff here? You planning on staying in the hills for a while ?"

" Not too long... this is all my stuff, you know." , said Brandon sounding both the hurt and offended

" Yeah...yeah, " said Cody pensively. " Could I get you to pop the trunk for me? "

" The trunk ?" said Brandon " There's nothing in there but the spare tire. Please, I'm really in a..."

Before he could finish his sentence, Cody's radio came alive with the voice of a very concerned Karen.

" I need all available units in the vicinity of Elmsdale and Gulley to respond to an officer in need of back-up. Repeat, officer in need of immediate back-up near the corner of Elmsdale and Gulley."

Shit! , thought Cody. What the Hell is going on in this town,today ? He considered this kid's possible crimes and weighed them against the needs of his fellow policemen and decided that whatever the kid was up to, it was probably not dangerous to human life in any way. Except....

" Do you think you can keep it under the speed limit until you get to the hills ?" he asked Brandon.

Looking with wide-eyed relief, he nodded his head enthusiastically in the affirmative.

" Well then it's your lucky day. Get the Hell outta here, and you better not let me catch you flying around like that again. Next time you won't be getting any breaks." With that, he trotted briskly back to his squad car, lit the cherries and screeched away, back in the direction of his first call.

* * * * * *

As Cody rolled up to the scene of the call, he saw two other cruisers had already arrived. They were parked haphazardly along the side of the road and initially Cody couldn't see where the officers to whom the cars belonged were. As he exited his vehicle, he could clearly hear voices emanating from down a dark and trash-strewn alleyway. He immediately placed one of the voices as Luis Alvarez, a ten year veteran of the force; the other one was unrecognizable and most likely the perpetrator of whatever it was that got them all out here. Drawing his weapon, he picked his way through the crowd that had already begun to congregate at the mouth of the alleyway and cautiously made his way towards the voices.

About fifty feet in, the alley made a ninety degree turn and ran another fifty feet where it abruptly ended in a brick wall. It was at the mouth of the "L" where he found his fellow officers with weapons drawn on the perpetrator who was at the dead-end holding a pitiful and rather sickly looking young lady at gunpoint. Alvarez was indeed the one talking, trying to convince the man to drop his weapon and surrender peacefully, while the man responded with screamed obscenities and nonsense about zombies all the while refusing to take his eyes off of his hostage.

" What's going on?" he quietly asked LaMarr, the other cop on the scene. Distantly he heard more sirens approaching.

" We got a call about a man waving a weapon around and shouting gibberish. I was the first to respond. Witnesses pointed me in the direction of this alley and when I got here, I found him pretty much as he is now. I tried reasoning with him and called for back-up. Alvarez showed up and then you, and here we are."

" Just drop the weapon, " shouted Alvarez, " It's not too late yet. If you give up now you'll be in a lot less trouble."

" I'm not the one you should be pointin' them guns at !", screamed the man with the weapon. " This zombie bitch attacked my wife, my neighbor and God only knows how many others. If you pussies won't take her out, then I sure as fuck will!". He levelled his gun at his victim, his tensing body telling the officers that he was readying to fire his weapon.

The three officers fired almost simultaneously, but not to kill. LaMarr's shot tore through the man's upper thigh in an explosive spatter that coated the lower part of the wall behind him. Alvarez' shot missed altogether punching into the bricks slightly below his forearm. Cody's shot however, hit the perp in the most effective spot. The slug smashed dead-on through the middle of the wrist of his gun hand nearly detaching it from his arm. The man crumpled to the ground, his screams echoing off the confined walls of the alleyway. Cody and LaMarr slowly and carefully moved towards the subdued assailant, while Alvarez held back and radioed for an ambulance. As they drew nearer the attacker, they realized that he posed no further risk and after Cody kicked the man's gun a safe distance away, the officers holstered their weapons. As Cody and LaMarr tended to the man on the ground, Alvarez approached the nearly victimized woman to assess her condition and perhaps take her statement.

The rest happened much too quickly to have been avoided.

Before Alvarez could begin speaking with the woman, she burst forward with an energy that betrayed her appearance in the process knocking the officer to the ground. Barely stumbling, she closed the distance between her former attacker and the officers in mere seconds and pounced. She landed on top of LaMarr and the wounded man, in the process sending the officer's face into the pavement with a sickening thump. Cody, at first too stunned to react, regained his composure and attempted to retrain the woman as she tore into her attacker with claws and teeth.

He succeeded in getting his arms around her chest, in spite of her bucking and thrashing, in spite of the almost intolerable heat that seemed to radiate from within her. By this time, Alvarez had gotten back on his feet and was approaching them with his taser drawn. Cody barely noticed this as he was far too preoccupied with maintaining his hold on her, which he managed to do until they swung around and he tripped over LaMarr's prostrate form. Losing his grip, he fell over landing squarely on his back, knocking out his wind. Gasping for air, he looked up at the woman, who had gone from seemingly catatonic to almost feral, as she looked down at him with eyes that registered no feeling. Just as she seemed ready to pounce again, Alvarez fired his taser.

Although the prongs of the taser scored a direct hit, they seemed to have no effect on the woman apart from drawing her attention away from the jumbled heap of wounded men before her and towards Alvarez. Dumbfounded as to how she could remain standing after receiving the maximum voltage possible, he stood motionless, eyes wide and mouth agape until she lunged at him and tore out his throat with her teeth.

Cody, who had witnessed all of this, struggled to stand. Fortunately the woman was too busy with the lifeless bloody mess that was Alvarez to notice him as he unholstered his revolver and fired three rounds into her head and back. Exhausted and strained by the violent and fatal developments ( which had run their full course in less than a minute), Cody collapsed into a sitting position amidst the carnage. In spite of the ringing in his ears brought on by the gunfire in an enclosed space, he could plainly hear a moaning coming from behind him. In all the excitement he had completely forgotten about LaMarr who was still face down on the pavement.

He half crawled towards him, noticing as he did so that the man who they had initially thought posed the biggest threat had either already bled out, or was very soon to do so. He reached over the man's body and rolled LaMarr onto his back. Initially, apart from a pulverized nose and a semi-conscious state, LaMarr seemed in relatively good shape. He gently shook his shoulder and got no response; a firmer shake resulted the same way. It was only then that Cody noticed a thin trickle of blood seeping from LaMarr's ear. Concussion...Dammit ! he thought to himself,Where the Hell is the ambulance ? He grabbed his walkie and requested back-up and the EMT's, trying desperately to keep the anxiety from his voice. He waited to hear Karen's confirmation from dispatch. He got nothing but dead air.

The first needles of panic began piercing their way into Cody's subconscious. Never in his years on the force had dispatch made an officer in distress wait for a response. He understood that things were busy down at HQ, Karen had said as much, but to go without getting as little as a confirmation made Cody feel nervous and more than a little isolated. He repeated his message over the radio, and got the same response; the empty sound of an unattended line.

Before he could allow the panic to overwhelm him, Cody began putting together his plan for resolving this mess. With a heavy heart he regarded Alvarez and realized that there really was nothing he could do for him. There would be no point in trying to haul him out of there. LaMarr, on the other hand, was still drawing breath, and although he seemed to have suffered some head trauma, he still had a chance. With that in mind, Cody slung Lamarr's arm over his neck, reached behind him and hoisted him to his feet. Fortunately, LaMarr had somehow managed to retain enough consciousness to keep his own feet on the ground. If he hadn't, Cody would have been forced to heave him over his shoulder and fireman carry him out, which is something Cody doubted he could do in his current state.

Together they staggered towards the alley's exit and as Cody drew nearer, the sounds of the street began filtering through the high-pitched whine in his ears. Shouting, screaming and the occasional gunshot combined into an overwhelming and insistant noise that seemd to invade and then resonate within his head. As he turned the corner and saw how the scenery of the street had changed in so little time, he nearly dropped his helpless partner in shock.

At various points along the sidewalks and street there were at least a dozen things like the one Cody had just dispatched and left behind him. At least a dozen and maybe more. Jesus he thought, If oneof 'em could almost wipe out a three man police unit, what will this many do ? This internal question was definitely rhetorical since the damage this many could cause was now in plain view.

The crowd that had begun to form as Cody entered the alley had by now mostly departed although fled may be the more appropriate word. The ones who remained hadn't done so of their own volition; they were either being attacked by the things (whose numbers were staedily increasing by ones and twos), or were lying prone and ravaged in pitiful bloody piles. As Cody watched, a lone middle aged businessman who was trying desperately to find a clear passage to escape, continued running in circles in the street until a pair of the stumbling, mindless things kncoked him to the ground. To Cody's horror, four of the others that had been milling about indifferently must have sensed the man's helplessness, for they suddenly whipped around and descended on the poor soul in a violent frenzy of flailing limbs. Presently, an ambulance, much overdue, came screaming through the intersection and lost control when one of the things blindly hobbled in its path. First, it tipped up on the driver's side tires, rocked over onto the passenger's side tires and finally, as it came down flat, pulled an abrupt ninety degree turn and careened into the side of a building sending its occupants through the windsheild. The passenger, still capable of some motion, attempted to crawl down from the hood when he was set upon by no fewer than a half dozen of the things.

Cody saw all of this, but his main concern was with getting LaMarr back into his squad car amd personally getting him to the hospital. Step by step he slowly drew closer to the car upon which he was so focused that he never even noticed the ragged, lurching thing turn the corner until it charged him and drove him to the ground. As he fell he saw LaMarr falling with him and heard the muffled, almost comic coconut sound his head made as it hit the pavement for a third time. Before he had time to react to this new set of circumstances, he was set upon by the same one that had toppled him over and visciously attacked.

Never really losing his cool (perhaps due to the shock of disbelief), he tried to roll over onto his back, but the thing's frantic ferocity only allowed him to make it to his side leaving his arms pinned and unable to reach anything useful in his belt. A flurry of clammy strikes and tearing gouges rained upon his face as he thought to himself with a nervous chuckle { i}This isn't happening. This shit isn't really happening. The assault stopped long enough to give Cody a chance to open his eyes, long enough to see the lunging, pink stained teeth, and then there was nothing.