Fish jogged into town and saw the lights of what was a police station right at the end of the street.
I couldn’t be any luckier he thought. He ran the rest of the way down the block knowing that now was no time to slow down.
He burst into the police station making his presence known.
“Hey, wha’cha problem buddy?” The question came from an older male police officer that was looking like he was pretty relaxed prior to Fish entering the station.
Fish stood still doing the exact thing that he knew he would, forgetting what he was going to say. “Um… I…”
“You’re either the dumbest drunk ever or the smartest,” a woman officer said from the other side of the room. “Are you looking for a nice cell to sober up in?”
“What? No, my friends are in trouble, I need help right away.”
The male officer got up out of his chair and started walking over to Fish slowly with his hands rested on his belt. “We get it son, your friend Captain Morgan and Jim Beam? Don’t worry, we’ll help alright. Just wait right over here in this room.”
Fish rolled his shoulders forward slouching at their misunderstandings. “I’m not drunk, not anymore anyways. My friends and I were at this cabin by the lake, we were attacked!” Fish realized that the first thing he said wasn’t going to make this conversation transpire any easier.
“Attacked by what?” asked the female officer. She acted suddenly interested and Fish wondered why.
He looked at her badges to read her name before he spoke again. “Officer Perry, me and six of my friends were down at the lake cabin a couple of miles from here when one of us got sick and started attacking the rest of us.”
She interrupted with a question obviously playing along as if she believed him. “Does this friend have any history of being violent? Or was there something… strange going on?”
“Well, no to the first question. Yes to the next. There was something not right with him to start with when he—”
Fish was cut off by someone running into the room yelling frantically.
“Daniels! Perry! We got some bad shit going on at Shorewood! The guy who came in an hour ago all spooked, he was telling the truth! We just got confirmation on what he said from the car we sent out there!”
The older officer walked over to the man who just ran out of the room. They whispered a few things back and forth the other man nodding every few seconds.
Daniels swore and looked down at the floor. “Come on Perry, we’ll leave Kansas here at the station to baby sit it and what’s his name back there, but the rest of us need to move out. Strap on your gear, sounds like we have some apocalyptic shit going on in Shorewood.”
“What about my friends?” Fish asked waving his arms through the air. “They need help too.”
“Listen buddy, based off the messed up stuff we’re dealing with now, I’m sure there is some merit to what’s going on with you and your friends if it’s the same messed up junk that I hope it’s not. But we have a whole town at stake here. We can’t bother with some non locals right now. I hope you understand.” Daniels said.
“But!”
Officer Perry scolded him, “How dare you talk to him like that Daniels! His friends are just as important to him as ours would be to us.” She turned to Fish and lowered the volume of her voice. “You have a name?” she asked.
Fish thought that to avoid any unneeded conversation he would tell him his real name and not the nickname everyone called him. “James…”
“I’m sorry James, but we have bigger things going on right now. We would like to help but as you heard you came in at a really bad time.”
Fish stared at the floor. He knew that arguing with the officers wasn’t going to do anything. They had a priorities and nothing he could say would be able to change that.
He sighed loudly before talking, gloom was apparent in his voice. “Maybe the others escaped. I did after all, why not the rest of them?”
“Yah,” Officer Perry said softly. “I’m sure that they were as lucky as you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get going.” With that she walked into the next room in a hurry.
Fish leaned up against the doors trying to feel better and push into his head that the others were ok; that he was right.
“You any good with a gun?” Daniels asked unexpectedly.
Fish looked up from the floor. “Huh?”
“You sure look like you could pack some hell in those arms of yours anyways. We only have so many men,” the female officer coughed loudly from the other room, “and women,” he said loudly. “The whole town of Shorewood is under attack by something unnatural and we could use an extra hand.”
“If I help you guys take care of this situation will you promise to help me and my friends?” He raised his voice almost laughing as he said it, “If it isn’t too late by then.”
Daniels looked at Fish with a serious glance before he answered. “I swear it on my badge.”
Fish pushed himself off the wall with his foot. “Well, I don’t know so much about a gun, but as you pointed out. I know my way around a fight, though I don’t know how much good it will do against those things.”
The screaming of a man from the other room rang through the station. “The worms! The worms will get you all!” He laughed hysterically, “They will get each and every one of you! You’ll see!” He continued to laugh in a crazed manner until Perry came out of the room and closed the door shaking her head.
She held out two guns for Fish to pick from, “Rifle or shotty?”
Ken saw the girls up on the roof and called to them as he ran over to meet them.
Before walking over to the other side of the roof Laura looked down at the mass of controlled people below them.
Laura felt it was weird that the worm in Magnis had him go into the house to get at them but the rest of them were just pawing at the siding of the house like they were more mindless than anything.
It was also odd that Ginger was attacking with telekinesis when she could have easily grabbed one off them off the roof with her other ability. She wondered if the worms multiplying made them, for lack of a better word, dumber.
It was the only way she could explain the lack of intelligence in them right now.
The one that was in Ginger must have switched over to Magnis after her familiars tore the original one from him apart while a duplicate crawled back into Ginger.
Realizing that connection could possibly be a key factor to killing them all, defeating them, whatever it was they had to do so there wasn’t any more.
She didn’t even know how they came to be in the first place. For all she knew could be everywhere just like the mosquitoes bothering Yang.
Laura cupped her hands to her mouth with the realization of what she just figured out.
“What?” Hillary asked.
“Remember that Yang was complaining about bugs?”
“Yah, so what?”
“You know of any kind of mosquito that could have bit through Yang’s suit and shirt he had underneath?” Laura asked putting her hands on her hips.
Hillary looked confused. She knew what Laura was implying, but at the same time it didn’t add up to her with what they had to do with the worms.
Ken called out to them again now that he was below them on the ground.
“Hey down here! Jump down, The Ken will catch you.”
One by one they jumped down into his arms. Now that they were together again they started talking about what to do next; making Laura forgot about the conversation her and Hillary were having.
They all talked quietly and huddled down low against the side of a porch.
Laura brushed herself off now that she had time to pay attention to such things. When she was satisfied she looked around. “It’s only a matter of time before the zombie people figure a way onto this street and come after us.”
“I’d say Magnis would be the worst thing to come after us,” Hillary said.
Ken tilted his head to the side. “There’s more of them now?”
“Right after you got thrown by Ginger the worms dropped out of their bodies and multiplied,” Laura explained. “Turns out they don’t need a live body to control and got right into all those dead people right away.”
Ken swore at the ground.
“Hypothetically, if we were on the other side of these houses, how many blocks would we be from the SUV?” Ken asked.
Both girls looked at each other with the same look of confusion.
Laura shrugged. “I guess maybe six now, maybe five.”
“So the plan is to get to the SUV and get out of here and to another town?” Hillary asked scratching the side of her face.
“The Ken thinks that it’s all we can do. We stay here and we’ll eventually be overrun.” He motioned down the street, “Follow The Ken and stay close to the houses and be sure to avoid the windows.”
“Right,” Laura said standing up and looking around.
The other two got up from crouching and they all started creeping alongside the houses.
Laura was thinking about what the old people said about blocking off the area in front of the SUV and wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed. “Do you think—?”
“Shh,” Hillary snapped, “we shouldn’t talk right now.”
Laura knew that what she wanted to ask was important but knew that there was no way two hours had passed.
Fish got into the cop car and sat next to Officer Perry with the rifle she handed him close by.
“Buckle up James, it’s the law.”
Fish grinned at her and did as she told him.
She backed the car up and followed behind Daniels.
The two made light conversation during the drive.
“So you were on vacation?”
“Right. Long story short there were two groups of us and it seemed like all we did was fight. I forget who, but one of us came up with the idea of getting away and trying to rekindle our friendships. Was working pretty well till these crazy purple worms were trying to turn us into zombies.” Fish wondered if she was actually listening to him or not. He knew that if he was on the outside of these events that it would be hard for him to believe too. Still, they obviously believed them enough to go to Shorewood, wherever that was.
“So how did you get away?”
“I jumped into the lake and swam across it,” Fish said casually.
“All the way across Lake Arroda? That’s got to be at least a mile across from the cabins; you must be a good swimmer.”
Fish got quiet.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I didn’t even try to save the others; all I did was run away. Not even in the direction the rest of them did.” He sighed at his lap. “Some friend I am.”
Perry was quiet not knowing how to respond. Fish didn’t blame her; it wasn’t much in his nature either to have the right thing to say for something like that.
“Why is Daniels slowing down?” Officer Perry said abruptly. She leaned forward in her seat to try and see more out the windshield.
At her words Fish stared out the windshield and indeed Daniel’s police car was slowing down to a stop.
Perry picked up her radio and talked into it. “What’s the holdup Daniels?”
There was silence and the two waited for a response.
“Daniels, why did you stop?” she repeated.
The radio crackled and his voice came through clear. “Someone is standing in the middle of the road. Dang craziest thing too; hands are all lit up with bluish fire.”
Want to continue? Part 10
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