They were coming through the roof. Jessup yanked Jay’s broken cell door open and dragged him out. “Alright, time to go, I reckon. Your shotgun’s reloaded, and I put a box of shells in that backpack of yours. Go grab them and let’s get a move on.”
Jay did as he was told whilst over in Cell 1 Frank hadn’t budged, not even when one of the cheap ceiling tiles came crashing down on a desk in the other room.
“It’s okay,” Jay called from in there. “They’re working hard, though. I think that tile came down because they’ve loosened up part of the frame or something, but they aren’t in yet.”
“Just keep that gun pointed in the right direction.”
Jessup turned around and left the holding area. He knew the smart thing, the ‘right’ thing to do would have been to put a round into Frank before he left, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d never liked zoos, and those ‘canned hunts’ that he’d read about in Newsweek a couple years ago made him sick too; bunch of rich people shooting a tiger as it stumbles out of some cage in the middle of nowhere.
If Jay was right, then Frank had killed already. Jessup was positive that he’d kill again if given the chance, but that didn’t mean he was going to gun him down in a cell.
Not when he had better things to do.
“Right,” he said when he came back into the cop’s workspace. Jay was peering up into the gap left by the fallen ceiling tile. It was dusk, too dark outside to hope for daylight to stream down to show them if they had a breach. In another couple of minutes the two of them would have to rely on their hearing and their reflexes alone.
And that’d be a feat. Jessup knew for a fact that he was so deaf that Bev down at the diner had to repeat his order to him two or three times each morning, regardless of the fact that he usually ordered the same thing. He’d have no chance of getting the jump on these things in the dark.
Jessup pulled a Maglight from the top drawer of the nearest desk and shone it out between the bars on the station’s front windows. There were six or seven Zombies out there, clearly visible, but what worried him more was the predator flash of eyes further down the street. He’d lived out here all of his life, driven roads at night where the only other illumination in the world was the moon and the stars and the shine of coyotes and tarantulas as they threw his own headlights back at him. Jessup knew when a critter was looking at him.
“We are about to have a whole lot of company,” he said, sliding the flashlight into the empty loop on his belt where he’d carried it while he was on the force. “If we’re still here when they show up, we’ll wish we weren’t.”
Jay took his eyes away from the ceiling for a second. “So what do we do?”
“Well, we’re going to bust Beth and Hattie and Nicole out of there, but we can’t do it tonight. Those things are faster and stronger than we are, and something in my gut tells me that they’re going to be better able to see in the dark than we can. We need to get out of here now.”
"Don’t forget about Dean."
Jessup swallowed hard. "Dean. We’ll get Dean too. Of course." When the words finally came out, they were too fast, and he wondered if he'd given himself away.
“Good.” Jay nodded to himself and went back to aiming the shotgun at the ceiling, then said, “How?”
Jessup sighed. He was hoping the kid would have had an idea, something they could work with. He could hear the Zombie’s tearing away the roof, the clatter of shingles on the sidewalk outside and, yes, just there and growing louder, the howls of more of them as the ones he’d spotted up the street rushed toward the source of the light.
He couldn’t help but feel old. Old and useless, a mere husk of the man who’d once prided himself on keeping Winslow safe. “That cruiser still in the garage?”
Jay shrugged. “Gabby said it was. Also said it wouldn’t get very far.”
“Doesn’t have to. P.T.’s is on the edge of town. If the cruiser goes at all, it should be able to outrun them. We’ll see how she runs. If the cruiser’s reliable, we’ll just stay on the road and a couple of miles ahead of them. If it isn’t, we’ll have to hope it’ll at least get us to that bar and back in the morning.”
Jessup could see that Jay wasn’t sold on the idea, which was fine. Good, even. He’d have been worried if the kid had thought piling all their hopes into a beat up Chevy the police department had been putting off getting fixed good and proper was a good idea.
Jessup held up his hand to stop any protests. “It ain’t a good plan. In fact, it’s a terrible one. I’d even go so far as to call it foolhardy, but it’s just better than sitting in here and waiting for the roof to fall in around our ears. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Good. Let’s get to stepping then, huh?”
Jay did, and Jessup took a couple of deep breaths and went over to the back door. The garage was outside and just to the left, behind another locked door.
“Wait,” Jay said. “You got the keys?”
Jessup reached up and felt for them through his shirt. They were there. Christ, what would he have done if they weren't? "Got 'em," he said.
"Not those. The keys to the car, man."
Shit. If he wasn't careful he'd rush this, forget something obvious and end this whole fool mission before they even got started. Wake up, man. You've been given a chance. For everybody else, all those poor souls who woke up with their husbands tearing at their throats or stopped at the lights only to get dragged out and torn apart in the street, they didn't get the opportunity I’ve been given.
The chance to, at the very least, go down swinging.
"No," Jessup said with a smile, "no son, I've plumb forgot 'em. Would have waltzed out there and gotten us both pretty dead." He plucked them from the hook by the door, thankful that some things never changed. If the Winslow P.D. had decided last week to reorganize their keys, they'd have been in an even bigger mess than they already were.
When Jessup picked them up, he felt a little metal tag on the ring along with the keys. He knew what it said. Years and years ago he'd put the tag on his first set of keys, and when he'd retired he'd left the tag behind. Some kind soul, most likely poor Gabriella, had been making sure the key tag stayed on a current set of keys.
Now they were on the keys to the probably derelict Chevy. He felt the raised words underneath his thumb. "This we’ll defend," he said.
Jay looked over. "Huh?"
Jessup jangled the keys at him. "Army motto, son. And by God we will."
"Be all you can be," one of them screamed from inside the roof, followed by a chorus of howls and wild giggles. Jay and Jessup both fired at the same time, bringing a rain of plaster and painful screams down on them from above and filling the office space with the boom.
Jessup backed up, still aiming at the roof, until he felt the door's handle against his hip. "Alright, we're going." Dark blood dripped from the roof, looking for all the world like a leaking shadow. "You gotta know, Jay, if I go down you keep right on going."
"Won't happen, Jessup, so stop talking like it will. I'll drive though, okay?"
Jessup couldn't help but smile. The kid had been in the back of a cruiser too many times in his life. About time he got to be behind the wheel. "Sure thing.” He handed the keys to the younger man. "On to the Insterstate if the car feels good and make for P.T.'s for the night if doesn't."
"Gotcha. But stop talking like you won’t be coming with me."
Jessup threw his hip at the door and shoved it open. There was one right there, obviously listening. So they can shut up, after all. Jessup had been ready for it, so ready that his shot spun the Zombie around and tore its lower jaw off its face.
He and Jay headed outside, and the cry went up along the length of the street. Jay fired and one dropped from the roof to the ground at their feet. It was still trying to get up when Jessup put another round into the top of its head. A second Zombie landed beside them, snapping both its ankles and making it only able to attempt an awkward lunge in their direction. Jay's shot threw it back, but Jessup still heard the scrabble of shingles from above.
More of them on the way, then.
He fired blindly at one running at him. It dodged his shot but not Jay's follow up blast, which gave Jessup a chance to use the key on the door to the garage. It was too dark to see the keyhole, but he'd done this so many times he could probably do this in the dark.
Turns out he could.
Every ambush feels the same. The heroes in the movies always tell somebody 'this place feels wrong' before one got sprung, but Jessup knew for a fact that was a bunch of hogwash. The ambushes that felt wrong, if they even existed at all, were the ones you didn't go anywhere near. No, ambushes felt right, they felt warm and fuzzy, like coming home and seeing that someone missed you enough to leave the light on for you. You never saw the Apaches silhouetted in the hills, or Charlie amongst the trees. You never even knew it was an ambush until somebody went down.
Just like this. Jay got hit hard and went to his knees. A big one had leapt off the roof and landed on him, tearing at his body with hands made into claws.
He was a good kid, really. Deserved better than this, at any rate. Probably would have grown up better if his Daddy had been around. Smart, too. Smart enough to have one in the chamber, and lucky enough to have brought the barrel up when the Zombie had dropped down.
The shot caught the thing high in the chest and blew a hole out the back of him that Jessup figured he could have walked through. He was in the middle of bringing his own shotgun around to finish it off when his instincts stopped him.
The mind is a funny thing, able to unplug from the body and carry on or to make actions that had once been trivial require extraordinary effort. Jessup knew this better than most. He'd watched his wife Martha go on for too long with a mind that just plumb didn't operate anymore and a body that still worked fine.
He’d known he was on the other side of that equation. Known it for some time, his mind was sharp, but his lazy, turncoat body just hadn’t been holding up its side of the bargain. His mind showed him what Jay's last muzzle flash had revealed. Zombies in the garage. Zombies on the cruiser. Zombies on the rooftops across the street, and all of them getting ready to pounce.
They hadn't been trying to get in through the roof, not really. Sure, Jessup was pretty sure they’d have pressed on with that if they’d had to, but the real goal had been to flush them out. Clever bastards.
Thing was, his mind showed it to him, over and over, right quick and agonizingly slowly, but his body took what felt like forever to respond. He said something to Jay that he knew didn't make any sense. Was that fear, or was he turning? Jessup finally brought the gun around and ducked into the garage.
He had no idea how many there were. He fired at them and they came at him, and when the shells were gone pulled the revolver out of his holder with his dominant hand. He didn't drop the shotgun, though. Oh no, Jessup knew well and truly that in six quick shots he'd be using it as a club.
He was right. His Drill Instructor would have been proud, he thought.
Jay got in and Jessup heard the welcome sound of the door to the garage smacking closed and the even more welcome bang of the kid’s shotgun firing. The cruiser wasn't far, not far at all, and Jessup clambered over bodies and dragged the ones that were hanging on to him over to it. Hands pulled at him from the ground, tugged at his legs, and he kicked them away.
Jay had stopped firing, which could only mean he was out of shells too. Jessup looked back and saw him wrestling with one of them, the gun up between them like they were trying to decide which of them would get the honor of dancing with it.
"Get in the damn car," Jessup bellowed, holding the shotgun by the hot barrel and swinging the fake wooden stock in an arc that almost caved in Jay's dance partner's head. It was the last of his strength, and Jessup couldn't help but smile as the impact ran up his arms. What a way to go.
There weren’t many Zombies left, but any number was too large an amount the way Jessup was feeling. His clothes were sticky with his own blood, and he could feel the adrenalin leave his muscles and leave only fatigue in its wake.
The kid managed to get in behind the driver’s seat and close the door. The headlights blazed. Jessup heard a ragged shriek and saw Jay, lit up by the lights on the dashboard, pointing frantically through the windshield at the thing that had made the noise.
This is the end.
The Chevy’s engine coughed to life. That was something. At least Jay would make it out. Jessup turned to face the ones behind him. Two. Two women, who on any other day he’d have tipped his hat to, or found a compliment for. Today though, they were terrible, broken things, one of them on her hands and knees, the front of her sundress torn open to expose her breasts and the other leaking blood from the stump below her elbow.
Jessup took a couple of practice swings with the shotgun. “Come on, ladies. Old Jessup’s got enough fight in him for one more dance, I reckon.”
The roar of the big V8 hammered at his ears, followed immediately by the shrill squeal of tires. The Chevy leapt forward, catching the women square on the cruiser’s bullbar and smashing halfway through the flimsy garage door.
Jessup hobbled over to the back door of the abused cop car and yanked it open. “Goddamn it. You stuck?”
Jay grinned at him from the front. “Hell no, old man. Just waiting for you to get in. Hurry up, the meter’s running.”