Zombies! (Episode 6): Barriers Collapse Read Free

venom.
     
    Smith had nothing to report. Over the last two days, the Angus Construction yard had remained inactive. They'd caught sight of a couple of zombies stumbling across the grounds but none of them matched Shawn's description. That, at least, was good news. The other portion of Smith's assignment was to investigate any other sites that might house scores of the undead. He had teams going from abandoned warehouses to unused dock sites. There was nothing so far.
     
    Satisfied with the report if not the results, Heron left Smith and went in search of Culph. The press conference had left him with the bitter taste of doubt in his mouth. His mind kept going back to the policeman zombie that had taken shots at Culph and his squad in the basement of Saint Francis church Saturday morning. It wasn't just the fact that the thing had had the wherewithal to pull the trigger. According to Culph, and according to what Heron had witnessed on Culph's shoulder camera, the other zombies had fallen in behind the cop. It looked very much to witnesses as if they were waiting for him to do the most damage so that they could then swarm forward. This troubled Heron. The first was Stemmy. It had been three months since his partner had been bitten by Zoe Koplowitz and had subsequently died from the infection. Three months since Heron had fulfilled his promise to prevent Stemmy from becoming a zombie himself by shooting Stemmy's lifeless body in the head. If there was a measure of intelligence inside those zombie brains, then perhaps he was guilty of murder. He wasn't sure he could live with that. Then again, an alleged intelligence didn't seem to stop them from killing and eating live human beings. It would have been much worse to have to face Stemmy under those circumstances.
     
    Culph wasn't at his desk. He hadn't been in the day before but Heron hadn't thought twice about it. Though he saw Culph almost every day, Heron was the only one required to work seven days a week. Everyone else got to take a break from the zombie menace, spend time with their families and friends, and forget the danger for a little while. With Culph, though, the danger was his family. It was his best friend. For him to take two days off despite being sent home Saturday after the church incident, seemed odd.
     
    Heron checked the basement next. There were sixteen men down there running drills. Al Henry, one of the first men to accept assignment to the zombie squad, was in charge. They'd set up sort of a Hogan's Alley area where they could move between obstacles and identify zombies from civilians. Despite all of the differences, it was sometimes hard to identify the living from the dead in the heat of the moment. Though no trigger happy cop had yet shot an uninfected person, there had been a few close calls. The Hogan's Alley exercise was an attempt to forestall that eventuality.
     
    "Any sign of Culph?" Heron asked, pulling Henry aside. They could hardly hear with all of the shooting.
     
    Henry shook his head. "Haven't seen him all day."
     
    Heron scratched at his smooth head. His chemotherapy was coming to an end. Soon he would go for his evaluation, a formality at this point; the doctors said he was doing great. Then he'd have to start shaving again. Patting Henry on the shoulder, he turned to go. He'd taken four steps when Henry called him back.
     
    "I almost forgot," Henry said. "A couple of detectives from homicide were looking for you. Swanson and…Mijaro?"
    Heron nodded. He knew both of them. Thanking Henry, he left the basement and headed back up to his office. Once in his chair and breathing comfortably with a cup of coffee within reach, he picked up the phone. First he called Culph's cell phone. When there was no answer, he tried the apartment. Still no answer. Now he was worried. He was half tempted to go over there. First, he decided to call Mijaro. Pulling the number off of the computer, he dialed the phone and waited.
     
    "Detective Mijaro," came