Out of the Shadows Read Free Page B

been well lit in the room, he would have seen my face go white. It’s thoroughly embarrassing to know that tales of my legendary fall from grace were still getting around at the precinct. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I spat.
    The man shrugged. “Nothin’. Heard you was a great cop ‘fore your…” but the man wisely stopped himself from continuing. “Well… I’m Billy Townsend.” He reached his hand through the bars, and I reluctantly accepted his greeting. “Your vest ain’t gonna save you, by the way,” he mentioned of the flak jacket under my hoodie.
    I considered him a moment and then said, “I suppose I should get you out of there.”
    Billy reached into his pocket and retrieved a small ring of keys, dangling them from his thumb and forefinger.
    “You don’t want out?”
    “Hell no! This here’s the safest place to be right now! Least until all this… passes.”
    “What the hell is going on? I woke up maybe two hours ago, and now the world’s gone to shit!”
    “Wow,” Billy shook his head incredulously. “You got no idea?”
    I didn’t dignify his condescension with a response, so I just continued staring, awaiting his explanation.
    “Well, I don’t know much. We got a call that a riot had broke out downtown. We get there, and it’s pandemonium. People runnin’ ‘round everywhere, flailin’ their arms, smackin’ at themselves. Others dropped to the ground like they was dead, but then they’d hop right back up, calm as ever.
    “My partner drove us outta there ‘fore I even had the chance to get out of the car. And when we got back here, same thing was goin’ on inside. It was total chaos. People was bitin’ each other, goin’ crazy, screamin’ ‘get ‘em off me!’ I decided there’s no use in dyin’, so I locked myself in here.”
    My mind was racing with thoughts of disbelief, trying to come to grips with everything Billy was explaining. Part of me wanted to call his bluff, like this was all some cruel practical joke to play on “the famous Nick Barren.” Poor old drunk, he wouldn’t know the difference!
    “Well, you can come out now,” I said. “There’s no one out there. Everyone is gone.”
    Billy shook his head, a slight terror forming in his eyes. “No. No, they ain’t. They’re out there. And they won’t stop ‘til they got us all.”
    “What? Who’s ‘they?’”
    Billy looked hesitant, as if he were debating whether he should rat out his brother for stealing from the cookie jar or something. “I thought back through everything I seen. The flailin’, the bitin’, droppin’ to the ground, suddenly gettin’ up like everything’s all right.” He paused, his eyes flicking back and forth erratically, thoughts swirling through his dark mind. “Whatever’s happenin’ to these people, it’s spreadin’. Prob’ly through the bites.”
    Now he had crossed a line of weirdness that I couldn’t logically accept. “You mean like vampires?”
    Billy laughed uneasily. “Vampires ain’t real.”
    “Then what? Like… zombies or something?”
    His gaze fell into the distance as his mind focused on some far-away thought. “Or somethin’,” he mumbled. “These people ain’t dead. They’re just… different .”
    A long silence passed between us, and I felt a slight shiver crawl up my spine. “You know this all sounds crazy, right?”
    “Yeah.” Billy held out the keys to me. “Want the cell next to mine?”
    My mind became muddled with thoughts of the only two people in town I held any kind of significant feelings for – my ex-wife Sarah and the Gravedigger’s bartender Deb – and I needed to know that they were safe. I wanted to get out of Angelwood. Maybe head to Franklin. They seemed to have things under control there. But I couldn’t leave town before seeing Sarah and Deb.
    “D’ya hear that?” Billy asked, dread slowly washing over him.
    I strained my ears to listen. Sure enough, outside in the main office space, I heard the main