Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel by James Carlson Page B

in the building had heard the riot going on outside, had walked out into the street, to see what had been happening and that had been the end of them.
    In the kitchen, he found a landline telephone attached to the wall. Though he had turned the volume of his personal radio down as low as it would go, he could still just about hear the constant panicked transmissions, officers pleading for help. He needed to speak to someone back at the control centre for more than a few seconds , without being cut off by yet another emergency transmission. Reaching up from his squatting position, he snatched the phone receiver from its housing and pressed the ‘nine’ button repeatedly.
    “Which service do you require?” he heard a voice say over the line.
    “Police,” he whispered.
    “You’ll have to speak up, sir.”
    “Police,” he said again with an insistent hissing growl.
    There was a short pause, which seemed to drag on to Muz, as he peered through the door to the living room and scanned it for signs of life.
    “Police operator. How can I help?”
    “This is PC Dogan , Six Two One Sierra X-ray,” Muz responded hurriedly. “I’m caught up in the riot, or whatever the hell is going on, in Mill Hill. I’m on Engel Park and I need urgent assistance, as many units as possible.”
    He could hear the operator speaking to a collea gue but it was difficult to pick out what she was saying, as she’d covered her mike with a hand.
    “It’s another officer inside the cordon,” was all he managed to make out. After what seemed like a lengthy exchange between her and the other operator, she removed her hand and spoke to Muz again.
    “All I can suggest, PC Dogan , is that you get out of the cordon area, if you can. The situation is totally out of control at your location.”
    “Really?” Muz replied sarcastically.
    “The cordons in that area have been abandoned and breached, and new cordon positions have been expanded much further out. You need to try and get to your nearest manned station,” the woman told him.
    “Yeah, I already tried that. Didn’t get very far. I need a Trojan unit or someone to come and extract me,” Muz demanded.
    The operator sighed into her end of the phone.
    “So should I stay put and wait for help?” Muz asked.
    “We simply don’t have the necessary resources available to…” the infuriatingly calm woman began to say in her matter-of-fact tone of voice.
    Muz’s attention was suddenly focused elsewhere however and he lowered the phone from his ear. He could have sworn that he had heard something inside the house, the faint click of the front door handle being used maybe, followed by the soft thud of the door swinging open and stopping when it hit the wall in the hallway.
    The op erator was still chattering down the phone and Muz became afraid that even such a faint whisper might give him away. Pressing the ‘off’ button, he placed the handset on the kitchen work surface as carefully as he could.
    He waited there for a good minute, squatting in the corner by the sink, his faced screwed up in concentration, as he tried to listen over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. Just as he decided he must have imagined the sound, there came a low, menacing growl from the hallway.
    “Oh shit,” Muz whispered, the words coming from his mouth before he could stop them.
    Scuttling as quickly as he could through the doorway to the living room, he tugged open the patio doors and escaped into the garden. Standing on the lawn, he stopped for a second and looked frantically around. A high wooden fence surrounded the garden on all three sides and there was no gate.
    Making his way over to the rear fence, he stood on a half-chewed squeaky dog toy. The shrill squeal it emitted gave him a jolt of fright that was almost pain ful. His immediate response was to look over his shoulder back at the house. There he saw, through the patio doors, in the living room, the silhouette of a motionless figure. Framed by