Zombie (part III)

When I arrived, only Crane was there. Naturally she looked tired. I assumed she had been up all night too because of the phone calls.

" 'Morning Crane. Sorry for the extra shift, but we can't lose the guy. Where's Joey?"

"He hasn't arrived yet, are you going to wait? Want me to go along?"

"Is there anyone else in?"

"A couple support personnel are already here. George, Carl, Jackson ... But there's no investigator..."

"You can go home," I said as I lit my first cigarette of the day, "you've done enough. I'll ask Carl and George to take me there and Jackson to follow the other car. Tell me something... The robbery reports... The calls about the stolen cars... When were they received?"

"Just now..."

"But at what time? Precisely? Were both received almost at the same time?"

Crane had a hesitation of discomfort. I was excessively agitated and naturally passed my agitation to those with whom I communicated. But it's just that I didn't want to lose the zombie by any means. She thought for a moment and then answered:

"Y... Yes. Now that you mention it... They happened almost at the same time."

I just frowned as I took a pull out my cigarette. It was my custom to frown when I had something on my mind. Sometimes I spoke my mind to whoever was listening to me, sometimes I just kept it to myself.

That bastard... It was smarter than I thought. Everything from the escape by foot and the murder must have been premeditated. For the scene of the robbery it chose Club Jewel and not a jewelry store near its home so that it could have time to outwit the conventional police. If they were close to its residence it risked being seen when it was leaving the room with its stuff. It chose to run on foot because it would be easier to miss them without a large vehicle. It was aware SAD would find him by scent, but due to the time it would take between the report and us taking action it would have enough time to kill the man and then leave town. It chose to kill that man here in Sproustown to prevent any fuss at its next destination; it could have another three days without hunger and thus without drawing attention.

The only thing that was puzzling me was that it didn't escape the city immediately and I didn't know why. But at that moment I saw that this must've had to do with the haste with which it searched its house before jumping out the window. The money made in the jewelry store must have been added to an amount it already possessed. It must have been money that was raised to repay a debt here. It is well known that in Sproustown there are some gangs that deal with drug trafficking. It must have something to do with them ... And that would explain why it didn't run away yesterday instead of today. Either it had an appointment with someone yesterday ... Or it needed to pay someone to whom he owed yesterday, so it had to get the money illegally and hastily, and had to elaborate an escape for the next day ... Another possibility is that it was working together with someone else involved in trafficking and for some reason would expect this person to leave Sproustown with it this morning. All these reasons explained waiting until morning for escaping the city.

Taking everything in account, it is hard to believe the bastard has decided to steal any car to be the vehicle of its escape. It should be aware SAD already knew the situation. It must've had worked out an escape plan, so it probably arranged two simultaneous thefts in order to get us off track. And with this thought in mind, I asked Crane if the robberies had been done at about the same time, as if to confuse the police about which car to keep their track on. And that indeed seemed to be the case.

Hard to think a zombie like Jeffrey Sprohic would have premeditated every detail of its escape alone, and since it was able to work out two simultaneous thefts for distraction that led me to believe it must've been working with or for someone else. And that led me to consider even more the possibility of a relationship with the city's illicit drug distributors.

But increasing the number of thefts would not fool the police, we can just divide the personnel, each team goes after one stolen car. So since it's being so smart it should've been one step further, which led me to the most likely conclusion: Sprohic wasn't planning to leave the town by car, but by boat. And not just one, but both car thefts must have been a distraction.

From that moment on I worked with this hypothesis in mind.

I went down to the garage and organized the staff. There were six earlybird soldiers available: Jackson, Carl, Rubens, George, Hick, and Mike. I organized the patrol into three teams: Hick and Mike would investigate the first reported robbery, Rubens and Jackson would chase the second car, and I, along with Carl and George, would go to the harbor. I don't usually spend much time with the support staff, especially because they stay in the front building so we rarely get a chance to work together on an excursion. Since I don't know much about them, I can describe them by their physical characteristics: Carl was the short-haired black man and George was the older one, which looks like a truck driver.

"Drive till the harbor, lieutenant?" George asked, "do you think that...?"

"Yep. To the docks. Relax. I know what I'm doing."

And I hoped I actually was. But given the way Sprohic's plans were going so far, it seemed that I should be right. The hypothesis of dealing with traffickers further indicated the escape by boat, as those are the ones who have the money to maintain a boat in Sproustown. I partly got this idea too because traffickers are interested in paranormal beings like zombies, but I will save the details of the interaction between mafia and supernatural beings for later.

Damn. If I had associated the trafficking and the bloke yesterday before I left, I might have come to these conclusions earlier.

I was so certain it was leaving by boat I didn't even stop to think that I might be exposing the other two pairs to danger. After all, after I sent Crane back home, I was the only one qualified officer to deal with the zombie in that morning.

After a long ride we finally arrived at the port. I got out of the car thinking of finding out if any boats had already left, deeply fearing an affirmative answer. But as soon as I got out of the car I heard a commotion coming from the left side of the parking lot. I spotted a crowd of people. I figured they must have seen something. I contacted Jackson and Mark. They were still heading for the highways. Their plan was to see if the stolen cars crossed the highways at some point. They would be helped by the highway patrol once they reached the place.

"Stay in the car. I'll go down there and check what's going on," I said to George and Carl.

Fallen in the midst of the commotion was a port officer. He was unconscious and bleeding badly. He had probably taken a sharp blow to the head that left him in that state.

There are four features I notice in zombies. This is one of the ones I hate the most. As soon as they come across someone who opposes them, they use violence because they believe with their exaggerated strength they will achieve anything they want.

"What happened?" I asked an elderly bloke who was by my side.

"Looks like he was fighting a big guy. They were screaming loudly then suddenly the big guy gave him a punch him and he fell down."

People there were unsettled and absort in their worrying state. They were wondering continuously when would the ambulance arrive and where was the brute who had done it.

The second feature of the zombie is the simple mind. If Sprohic's plan is to come here, take a boat by force and leave the town, he will simply come here, take a boat and leave, without putting much thought into it. After all, it thinks any setback can be solved with violence. The fact that it actually resorted to violence in one manner indicated there was no boat waiting for him in the first place, instead it indicated he planned on stealing one right at that time.

How lucky of me. If the clerk had just been attacked and if he had no boat available that meant Sprohic was probably still out there somewhere. People must have lost sight of it not because it ran very fast, but probably because they were too intimidated by its two-meter high to purchase it.

Can't blame'em. Such a one-striker is not to be taken lightly.

As I was about to start looking for the suspect near the boats I heard a commotion from the car. "It can't be," I thought to myself. I ran toward the car. Once there the car had the front scrunched up and Carl was perched by the door. He had a pistol in his hand. There was a lot of blood around him, which worried me. I crouched down and shook him by the shoulders. Carl woke up.

"Carl. Carl. You allright?"

He was injured but still conscious. He managed to answer in a low voice.

"He showed up. It is a giant. I was running toward that blue two-story boat. Then I took the pistol and fired." He coughed and his head fell to the side from dizziness.

"Carl. Calm down. Where's George? Don't tell me he...?"

"He went after..." "Huh..." Carl's voice was stuttering.

That bastard... And that must have been done it a single blow too...

Since George wasn't there, I had to choose between calling for reinforcement or pursuing the zombie myself. But I had been willing to capture the bad guy for some time now and it was about to flee by boat, so I put off help for the time. I headed toward the recommended boat, and noticed a trail of blood along the way. It was probably from Sprohic himself because George would not pursue him without experience if he was injured that badly. Which meant they should have hit it with a couple shots and it was still resisting.

Resistance. It is the third feature of a zombie. Their physical stamina allows them to remain indifferent to what appear to be the most serious of injuries, further evidencing their lack of humanity.

I spotted George pointing a gun at Sprohic who had a wound that pierced its shirt, probably done by a bullet. George wore a 22-caliber, and because of the inherent endurance of his species, Sprohic could take those bullets and stand still. Without giving up George was still pointing his gun at the fugitive, displaying a mixed expression of terrified and intimidating.

"George..."

"Sir! The guns are of no use!"

"Drop the gun. Let me handle this."

George lowered his gun and I just headed toward the boat approaching at the same normal pace. Since the criminal had not even got the boat started, it was safe to say could not escape from the current location. It was cornered.

Getting closer I could see how much taller it was than me. Thirty centimeters really make a difference. I looked like a ten-year-old looking at his father. Between the size of the muscle mass, the scowl on its bald face and gorgeous pose, its figure, I must admit, was quite formidable and imposing. It would make any conventional cop piss his pants.

Sprohic chuckled and said:

"You cops keep showing up. Don't you realize your pistols are no good?" It laughed and showed the wounds on its chest: a bullet was cut to less than half inside a hole that was bleed a bit, but much less than it should have been. "Check out this body! I am indestructible!"

It kept expecting fearful reaction from me. I just kept walking calmly to him. It scowled.

"Okay. Sounds like I'll have to make two more corpses before I go..."

It grabbed a heavy fishing box from the floor near the boat door and started running towards me. I motioned for George to walk away.

The fourth typical feature of the zombie is total confidence in its brute force. As I said before, if something did not go along with its plan, Sprohic would use violence to bring the situation back to the intended initial scenario. It was like that when he attacked the clerk and probably what happened when Carl tried to capture him while I was among the crowd.

Violent character, simple reasoning, stamina, brute force and overconfidence. Sounds like what makes a typical comic book villain formidable, but ironically in real life from SAD's list of potentially dangerous beings these are the characteristics of the most easy-to-handle candidates.

Resistance and brute force aside, all of these are disadvantages. Its violent character makes it leave enough clues to be discovered during its attacks, its simple mind makes its attitudes predictable and its confidence makes it prefer a direct fight rather than planning a escape, everything facilitating the work of police.

Sprohic approached determinedly and when close enough, it turned his arm and hit me with the fishing box right in my head, imagining it would shatter it to pieces. It must have used the same force as it did on that broken glass of Club Jewel. Its wicked laughter covered its face all the time during the impulse until the moment of contact.

Bam!

There was a hollow noise and the box broke apart into a thousand pieces, which fell to all sides. Sprohic himself had its body thrown back with the force of the blow.

I'll give it one and a half out of ten: its strike wasn't complete trash. My head must have tilted to the right a bit more than a couple of inches on impact. A small trail of blood began to flow through one of my nostrils. With a mere sniffle I made the blood stop.

"So this is the strike that broke that two-inch glass of jewelry? Not bad ... It looks pretty strong, really."

"What the hell?"

Sprohic now had a completely terrified expression. I don't blame it. It's typical for a newborn zombie to imagine it's the only one with exaggerated physical properties compared to humans. It would not imagine there can exist others with the same properties. Now it could no longer use the box because it had been smashed when it hit me.

"What...? What are you?" It brandished and lunged for a surprise attack, aiming to deliver a sequence of close range strikes.

Though in my view its movements seemed too slow. I deflected its thrust by turning my body sideways and then when it was close enough, I hit my knee into its belly as it forced its giant body from over two meters forward. The thing bent fast and exaggeratedly, like a worm writhing. It spat blood at the beat. When it was at the right spot, I gave it a right in the face with which it fell abruptly to the ground. It all happened in only an instant.

I lit a cigarette and looked at its disgust. As long as it could bear the superficial wounds of the bullets, it seemed those compact blows had a considerable effect on its body. It frowned and struggled to its feet. Its pride would not allow him to give up so easily.

I was wearing my iron-tipped boots, part of SAD's uniform, at the time. Before it tried anything, I kicked it straight in the face twice. With which Sprohic finally stopped moving. I took a pull out my cigarette then said to George:

"There. Now bring the handcuffs from the car. Careful, it's strong. You're gonna need a lot of them."

"Y... Yes, sir." He put his gun away and heeded my order. He didn't say any other word on the way back.

After that incident we brought the suspect to the central, where it was arrested for the next few days, until the captain decided which prison unit to take it to. Carl's injuries were treated immediately and luckily nothing serious had happened. Although the bandit almost escaped that was registered as a solved case by our division.

This is the story of the daily life of a SAD lieutenant. Among all the sort of things we have to deal with in our line of work, Jeffrey Sprohic was just a small fry.