Free Forest Park: A Zombie Novel by Jamie Marks Page B

movement.
    Nothing!
    Alpha team then ascended the staircase as Beta team waited outside for their conformation.
    Charlie Team, positioned on the top of the building, smashed the roof’s emergency access door wide open. The team then flooded down the staircase in single file toward the lower floors.
    Moving swiftly, Charlie team’s point man was the first to enter the hallway on floor six.
    The team’s adrenaline was pumping as they flowed forward to clear floor six of any hostiles that they may find.
    The place seemed dead.
    Charlie team radioed in that floor six was clear, and moved down to the next floor. Then Floor five was cleared in the same rapid pace. The building seemed as if it were empty.
    The team then ran down the staircase to floor four, everything was going to plan.
    Charlie Point swiftly moved along the hallway of floor four, with his MP5 swinging rhythmically from left to right until he came near apartment seven and eight’s door, both of which were ajar.
    Charlie Point moved slowly forward and looked inside both apartments; he didn’t see anyone, but he did see blood and lots of it. Both apartments looked like a slaughterhouse. Calling his team forward, Charlie Point ordered them to search both apartments --- no bodies were found.
    The grisly find was then called in and acknowledged.
    The only piece of information the squad leader neglected to mention were the wildly scattered and bloodied footprints, which were found in both apartments and the hallway.
    When the SWAT commander told Ambrose about the bloody scene, Ambrose merely shrugged and said, “Dead bodies don’t just stand and walk away, do they?”
    Ambrose felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. “Hello”
    “Ambrose.”
    It was Harris. “Yes.”
    “Where are you, have you entered the building?”
    “Outside the target building, and no.”
    “Have you had any contact with anyone who has entered the building?”
    “No. SWAT has just begun the raid. How did you know I was here?” Ambrose asked.
    “If I had known you were going to attend I wouldn’t have let you off the leash,” Harris said.
    “What do you mean?”
     
    Alpha team reached the second floor within seconds of entering the building.
    Alpha’s Point man, using a camera attached to his short-barreled MP-5, scoped the hallway ahead of his team; it appeared as if it was clear, his only concern being the open doors to apartments three and four and the bloody mess, which surrounded both.
    Moving forward, Alpha Point saw in more detail the large, bloody handprints and smears, which had dried to the color of rusted iron.
    Looking down he saw more bloodied footprints on the wooden floor and the carpet. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, and some of the bloodied tracks led to the street outside.
    Alpha teams leader called the scene in, and after scanning the area, he reported that there were no bodies.
    Ambrose waited for Harris to answer. “Things have moved fast. The bio-weapon is far worse than we first thought. The assault teams will become compromised. Evacuate the site and wait for the special response teams at the eastern intersection. Don’t tell anyone what I have told you,” Ambrose heard Harris say before the phone went dead.
    Ambrose replaced the phone into his pocket and began to move away. He was beginning to have a bad feeling about this. The more Charlie team investigated the upper floors, the greater their concern began to grow. Bloody handprints, pieces of flesh, something was terribly wrong. Except where were the bodies?
    The team entered the staircase that led to floor three, as they did, one of them knelt and examined an ear that lay on the floor.
    “My God,” Charlie Point said as a man walked toward the bottom of the staircase from the hallway of floor three, unarmed and badly injured. “Don’t move,” he said as he raised his weapon.
    Back on floor two, Alpha team stormed the target apartment.
    In the main living area, the team found a large