Read Online Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel by James Carlson - Free Book Online

offered, “is that, for your own safety, you get well out of the area. Go to a family member or a friend’s place for a few hours until all this blows over.”
    “I don’t believe this,” the man said. “Have you any idea how much of an inconvenience this is?”
    “Sorry.”
    Putting his car in reverse, the man performed a rapid U-turn, glaring at the two police officers as he did so.
    “You lot are a bloody joke. No wonder everyone hates you,” he snarled at them and sped off with a short screech from his tyres.
    “Another satisfied customer,” Muz remarked dryly.
    A sudden thump came from behind them and they spun round to see, about forty metres along Engel Park, near the junction with Bittacy Rise, a man slumped over the bonnet of a parked car. As they watched, the man tried to push himself up off the car, but his strength failed him and he instead collapsed in the road.
    “He looks injured,” Muz said.
    “Yeah, we should help him,” Kieran agreed. “I’ll go.”
    “Okay . I’ll wait here in case anyone else tries to get through the cordon.”
    Kieran nodded and ducked under the tape.
    “I’ll call out if I need you,” he said, as he broke into a run.
    Muz paced up and down along the line of tape uneasily, as he watched his colleague run to the man’s aid. Kieran knelt beside the unmoving member of the public, tilted his head back, opened his mouth and checked for signs of life.
    “Mate, he’ s breathing,” Kieran called back over his shoulder at Muz. “But he’s bleeding quite badly and I can’t see where from. Sierra X-ray from Two Four Five, I need LAS at Bittacy...”
    “LAS are just as strapped as we are right now,” the CCC operator snapped in response, cutting over Kieran’s transmission.
    Though he was sat in the safe, air-conditioned environment of the Control Centre in Hendon, he was feeling the stress of dealing with this ongoing incident. He was becoming annoyed at having to say the same thing to every officer calling up and requesting an ambulance. He wasn’t annoyed at them for not having been listening and therefore being unaware that LAS had no units, but annoyed that he had no help to send to the officers at the scene when they sounded so desperate.
    “Every ambulance they can offer us is already at th e scene dealing with casualties,” he told Kieran.
    Muz ducked under the tape. The cordon would have to be unmanned for a few minutes; someone’ s life could be on the line. Besides, they’d only seen one person in the half hour they had been stood there.
    “No, stay on the cordon,” Kieran called out. “There’s a couple of coppers down there that can help. Hey, over here.”
    As Muz continued to watch from a distance, he saw Kieran stand and shout down Bittacy Rise. He himself could not see down the adjoining road from where he was stood.
    “No, you idiots. Over here,” Kieran shouted again, waving his arms around. “Oh for fuck’s sake. Hey, I’ve got an injured man here. I need you to help me stop the bleeding.”
    Before Muz could shout and tell him not to, Kieran ran into the junction with the other road and out of his line of sight. Maybe thirty long seconds passed, with Muz staring expectantly at the junction. Then there came a horrible shriek of pain. It was unmistakably Kieran’s voice.
    “Oh shit, oh shit,” Muz panted, as he sprinted along Engel Park as fast as his badly unfit lungs would allow.
    As he ran, he tried to call up on his radio but couldn’t get in on the channel , due to the still constant radio traffic. He pressed his PR’s emergency button, giving him momentary priority over everyone else.
    “ X-ray, I think Two Four Five is being attacked at the junction of Engel Park and Bittacy Rise,” he blurted out.
    “We’ll get a nother police unit to assist you as soon as we can,” was the only response he got from the CCC operator, before there was another emergency PR activation from another officer elsewhere.
    By the time he got to