Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel by James Carlson

subdue the crowds and apprehend offenders. All other officers will be manning the outer cordon, your main role being to prevent people from entering the containment area.”
    “Great. All hell is breaking loose and I’m gonna be stuck on a cordon,” Kieran grumbled.
    “Our main current concern is crowd control. I’d rather we didn’t lose too many officers from the scene due to arrests, but if you feel the detention of certain individuals will assist in calming the crowd, then so be it. With that in mind, we’re currently in the process of opening all the custody suites on the borough in the anticipation of an influx of prisoners. Other boroughs are also standing by to assist with their own detention facilities.
    “I don’t know how long this is going to take to clean up, so I’ll thank you all in advance for your efforts and patience, and thank you to the Hertfordshire officers and those from other boroughs for assisting us tonight.”
    “Guv’,” James Milligan, ‘Spike’ to his mates , a PC from team three piped up. “How many are dead?”
    “I really couldn’t begin to speculate on the number of civilians killed or injured at this time.”
    “No, I mean how many coppers have been killed?”
    Inspector Carver frowned heavily now and seemed lost for words for a few seconds. “We have several officers who are currently not answering their radios, despite repeated efforts at contacting them. We’re getting the positions of their radios triangulated by satellites and locating them is one of our primary concerns.
    “Now, report to your team Sergeants, for further briefings on your postings.”
    Outside the front of the building, the press and gathering local membe rs of the public were being pushed to one side by hastily erected barriers. A growing number of police officers bunched together on the grass. They waited impatiently for the mini-buses and carriers, which were frenziedly ferrying people to their cordon points, to return and pick them up. A group of men stood apart from the rest, checking the straps of each other’s helmets and MP-5 assault rifles.
    “Hey, are they SO19?” Kieran asked.
    “I guess so,” Muz answered.
    “You know what, if my application for Dogs goes nowhere, I’m going to try for that,” Kieran told Muz, who was hardly listening to him. “I bet they’ve got some war stories.”
    As the next bus arrived, Sergeant Sparks herded Muz, Kieran and other officers from team one aboard, ticking them off against his list.
    As soon as the sliding side door was slammed into place, the weary and stunned looking driver flicked on the blue lights and spun the bus around, speeding back along the road towards NW7.
    “Hey, Mark,” Zoe called to the driver from the back seat of the bus. “What’s going on down there?”
    Mark stared fixedly on the road ahead, almost trance-like. “It’s fucked up,” was his only response.
    He was an officer of some eighteen years service who had chosen to stay on core team the whole of that time, a rarity to say the least. He had seen some horrific things in his time, but nothing like this.
    “Driver, is the handbrake on, ’ cos my granny drives faster than this?” Harshil, a skinny Bangladeshi officer, jibed. He was the kind of person who annoyingly often thought himself to be funnier than he actually was.
    Mark ignored him, so with a smile to the others seated around him, Harshil made anoth er attempt at winding him up.
    “What happened to drivin g to the system? Thumbs on top. Ten to two. Feed the wheel.”
    These kind of remarks made at the driver’s expense were usually the norm when on a carrier, and everyone aboard would join in.  Harshil however didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation, which was playing on everyone else’s minds, and that no one was in the mood for humour.
    “Do you want me to feed you the bloody wheel? ” Mark snapped.
    “Was that a bite?” Harshil asked, happy that he had got a response. “I think