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any
better ideas I hoped he’d be willing to accompany me.
    In a near jog to the stairwell, I looked back
at my dilapidated ride. We bought that car when Sarah was pregnant
with Maddox. It safely brought both kids home from the hospital,
took Maddox to his first day of school, and drove Calise to her
first ballet class. The memories gave me a smile. With the world
falling around me, I knew I’d never see it again. I glanced to
check on the scarecrow before the far end left my view. He was
nowhere in sight.
    I quickened my pace. Within seconds I reached
Lance. His right hand still with gun drawn, his left held his own
retrieved bag. Now we just had to get back.
    What transpired as we ran into the stairwell
spanned only seconds. However, the moment will inhabit my
nightmares for the rest of my days.
    We passed through the entryway to the stairs
walking nearly side-by-side. Lance was maybe a half step ahead of
me. The slight reprieve offered from the retrieval of personal
items may have clouded our prior alertness. To his immediate left,
the stairs continued up. In front was the blood stained plateau and
the following descent to street level.
    The infected man must have been three of four
stairs up from where Lance stood. It nearly leapt towards him,
making a gut-wrenching sound I can only describe as a gurgling
growl of a moan. If I had been standing in his place I would likely
be dead. My reaction time has been considerably hampered by
enjoying a life spent in the seated position.
    The shots were deafening. Two in rapid
succession fired point blank in that concrete coffin. Shot number
one took off the top right side of its head. The corpse dropped in
its place, a quick airborne trail of darkly crimson muck and a
spackle to the dirty gray wall remained. A second shot, fired in
the considerable panic, cratered a stair near the next upward bend.
In that eternal second I looked at the infected man, realizing its
clothing looked like that of the previously motionless body draped
over the stairs. A second was all the time allotted to me, before I
met the infected man’s friend.
    Outside, a car struck the large streetlight
standing in front of the club adjacent to the deck’s vehicle
entrance. The flash from its sodium-vapor bulb exploding lit the
stairwell like a lightning strike. My vision became filled with two
black eyes, a gaping mouth, and a roadmap of dark veins launching
towards my awestruck frame. A cold, vice grip hand attached to my
left shoulder, pulling me towards a feral snapping mouth. Instinct
took over. I’d like to think it had some help from long forgotten
Defensive Tactics training.
    My left arm pushed with a surging might
against the cold mass of my attacker. Numbness immediately filled
my shoulder under the oppression of a determined grip. The ASP, now
warm from my unrelenting right-handed grip, met the infected temple
with a climax of adrenalized strength. A bone-cracking snap filled
the stairwell, mimicking another gunshot.
    I would have been pulled down with the
bastard, had his grip not released seconds after my strike.
Continued momentum sent it towards the upwards stairs, where the
nearly headless corpse lay. The sound of his head cracking on the
stair filled my throat with bile.
    Throwing caution to the wind, we basically
ran back to the rear door. There were more shambling masses in the
alleyway. Several appeared to be pursuing a panicked pair of kids
running to the east, away from our building. Another officer stood
at the door, holding it ajar and discreetly surveying the alley.
She saw us coming and nearly slammed the door shut. Had it not been
for Lance’s vest and familiar utility belt jingle we would probably
have been locked out. We ran inside and the thick metal door was
closed, secured by the functioning and powerful magnetic lock.
    Moments after reaching safety, we heard
pounding on the door. Guttural growling and moaning bled through
the old, not-so-soundproof barrier. I crashed from the