The Creeping Dead: A Zombie Novel by Edward P. Cardillo Page B

snapping at the officer beneath her.
    Screw the civilian review board, and screw the mayor. This was now a matter of self-defense. Holbrook brought his baton down on her skull repeatedly until her head actually caved in. The woman gave one final death rattle and became still.
    Pike threw her lifeless body to the side, and Holbrook pulled him to his feet. “You okay, Joe?”
    “Yeah. Thanks. What the fuck’s going on?”
    Holbrook looked around them. There had to be at least a dozen of these attackers.
                  “Where’d they all come from?” asked Joe.
                  “Probably a damned drug party. I’m thinking bath salts.”
                  Holbrook drew his gun and aimed it at the assailant lunging at Officer Joann Campbell, a middle-aged man with glasses askew on his face, dressed in khaki pants and a tropical shirt.
    Joann sent him flying backward with a well-placed front kick. She hit the man square in the chest, but the man appeared unfazed.
                  He looked at Joann and snarled as he staggered his way back over, reaching out for her.
    Remembering the girl whose skull he caved in, Holbrook aimed for the man’s head and fired. The man dropped immediately and lay still, bleeding out on the boardwalk.
                  “Shit! Gary!” shouted Joann over the thundering surf. She splashed through the brine in time to pull an old woman who had tripped over her own walker and was crawling toward Gary. Gary was kicking her reaching hands away with his feet, but she just kept coming.
                  “We need some backup on the boardwalk,” shouted Holbrook into his radio. “We have multiple assailants biting our officers.”
                  His radio clicked, and there was a voice, but he wasn’t able to make out what it said over the wind and thrashing surf.
                  Joann grabbed the old woman by the ankles and pulled her away from Gary.
    Holbrook started to walk over to them to help, but there was the crash of a wave and a wooden bench slid across the boardwalk with the surge of water, taking his legs out from under him.
                  He dropped his gun, which got washed up against the roll-down metal gate of Billy Blake’s shop. He crawled toward it, sea foam and salt water splashing his face and blurring his vision, as he felt something large wash up against him.
                  He turned around to see Joann shoot the old woman in the head, when a hand reached out for his face. He rolled sideways and out of the grip of a young blonde haired woman reaching out for him, her dark eyes feral with hunger.
    He kicked her away as another wave crashed, the surge sending the both of them crashing against Billy Blake’s metal gate. He splashed around in the water, his hands frantically searching for his gun.
    The rush of water had rolled the young woman so that she was facing away from Holbrook. The back of her wet shirt read ‘Zombie Patrol.’ He took the opportunity to try and scramble away from her, but another surge of surf sent a heavy decorative flower pot across his path, crashing into Billy’s gate and crushing it inward.
    The young woman was thrown up against the metal gate. She saw Holbrook, her eyes wide with rage, her mascara running. She looked like a monster.
    Holbrook saw his gun just inside Billy’s store. He reached underneath the bent-in gate as she splashed in the water, struggling to get him.
    His fingertips touched the barrel of his gun, pushing it farther into the store. He felt fingers grabbing his legs, and he kicked wildly, pushing the woman away.
    He looked over his shoulder as he saw Joann dragging Gary over, the water helping her move him. She let go of Gary and grabbed the young woman’s ankles, pulling her away from Holbrook.
    There was another crash of a wave, and Joann lost her footing as water took her legs out. She and Gary slid toward