Jason Campagna - White Ash on Bone - A Zombie Novel

Eason won a citation from the Mayor’s office. He won the Outstanding Officer of the Year award. He got promoted and was assigned to expand his program to other troubled areas of the city.

That was all over now.

The past 15 hours made Eason feel like a rookie cop again. He was called in on his day off because of what he thought was civil unrest in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh. Within a couple of hours, everything he thought he knew about the world abruptly changed. They lost half of the city’s finest before he could even report in.

Eason sat in his squad car gasping for breath. He had just run several city blocks to make it back to his vehicle. A woman ran by his car crying as she fled on foot, her breath was visible in the first morning chill of the year. Eason held his 9mm service pistol in his hand and closed his eyes. The metal end the barrel felt cold on his shaved head.

His radio crackled with reports from all over the city. Downtown Pittsburgh was fairly quiet as very few residencies were located there. Oakland on the other hand housed a number of intersecting universities including the University of Pittsburgh. By the time Eason arrived at the rally point in Oakland, they’d figured out you had to shoot them in the head.

They thought they had the dorms locked down but injured kids died and then spread the carnage inside after they came back. Hundreds of zombies swarmed over Oakland tearing into anything that moved. By midnight, hundreds of dead turned into thousands.

Eason never imagined he would have to shoot kids. He could still picture them tearing at each other. One minute he was putting down the dead and then there were too many to deal with. His night was spent surviving each block.

Command ordered them out of Oakland around 3 A.M. and told them to rally back downtown. Less than half the police left alive in Oakland made it to the rally. Eason knew several officers who got in their car and drove off never looking back.

Eason could see the University’s Cathedral of Learning from his squad car. The building was a towering inferno lighting up the dark morning sky.

"Command to all units, the Mayor’s office is now ordering an evacuation of the city. A military response is expected in the next few hours. We are going to try and establish a safe zone around the football stadium. Helicopters can land inside the stadium and evacuate civilians as well as land troops to reestablish order in the city. All fire stations will be sounding air-raid sirens non-stop after this broadcast. TV and radio are now broadcasting evacuation instructions based upon areas in the city.

On a final note, good luck to you all. God help us."

Eason dropped the gun away from his head. He knew he would still have friends heading to the stadium to help out. He couldn’t let them down.

Down the street, he could see a zombie trying to break into a building to get at someone. Eason started his car and drove in the opposite direction leaving whoever it was to their fate. In the distance, air-raid sirens started their slow whine.

Eason arrived at the stadium 15 minutes later in a line of emergency response vehicles. Police and firefighters were rushing around on foot in an attempt to get logistics in place for civilians who would be arriving soon. Eason parked his police cruiser right in front of the stadium.

“Eason!” a man shouted. “Over here, we got C gate.”

Eason looked to see it was his station Captain Shane Fennel.

“What’s the plan?” Eason said.

“We push the civilians into the stands,” Fennel said. “Then the choppers come in and drop troops off and take the civs away. Separate out anyone who’s injured.”

“Where do we send them?” Eason asked.

“The military wants them over in the baseball park across the parking lot,” Fennel said. There was a loud thumping of helicopters in the distance. “Sounds like military equipment. You can always tell because they have bigger power-plants than the civilian equipment; it gives them deeper base.”

Flying up the Ohio River came four Apache gunships visibly loaded with missiles. They flew side by side at a leisurely pace up stream to the confluence of the three rivers. At the point, they broke off by twos, one group heading up the Allegheny and the other the Monongahela. They continued to watch the pair of Apaches on their side of the river heading up the Allegheny.

The choppers elevated above a series of bridges and turned to the side facing Oakland.

“Must be scouting the situation,” Eason said.

In the distance came the sound of static crackling that rolled in long bursts. The Apaches had opened up with their chain guns.

Fennel shook his head, “Indian wars all over again.”

“What?” Eason said.

“Lots of fighting took place here back in the 1700’s,” Fennel said. “You’re standing on the Indian side of the river right now.”

The Apache chain guns cut out and the chopper engines whined up in pitch as they shifted position.

The next sounds carried down by the river were multiple whooshing sounds followed by explosions.

“Shit!” said Eason, “I think they just took out the Washington’s Crossing Bridge.”

“Lot of good that will do," said Fennel, "Those things must have been getting across the bridges all night.”

"More helicopters," Eason pointed down river. Ten Black Hawks approached the point and then slowed to a hover over Point Park. The park held the half buried ruins of the city’s namesake, Fort Pitt. The fort had once dominated the entire Ohio Valley to the Mississippi. Today, the fort had a front row seat to the end of the world.

Three of the Black Hawks broke off from the rest and turned to the football stadium. One by one, they landed in the middle of the field. Troops disembarked wearing bio-chemical gear.

An hour later, Eason found himself facing a crowd of panicked civilians. People rushed to the stadium in droves. In the first half hour, they jammed the early morning streets of the North Side. While zombies had been dispersing into the North Side of the city for hours, encountering one was still random. The police tried to keep the traffic moving but the increasing attacks brought movement to a stop.

Eason had seen the same thing happen in Oakland across the river. You had people sitting in bumper to bumper traffic when one of those creatures meanders over and tries getting inside a vehicle to get at someone. He thought about what that would be like to view that from the driver’s seat of the car behind the one being attacked. Eason pictured being stuck with no room to drive anywhere. “Option A,” you hang tight and pray some one will show up and help the situation. “Option B,” you run like hell, Eason thought.

The crowd running to the stadium from everywhere was option B. Eason’s job was to sort out the wounded for the military and send them to the other stadium across the parking lot. He was told to tell people the military had medical attention for them there.

The football stadium had fairly solid iron gates crested with the football team’s logo. The police had closed all the gates but one in each section, so they could properly inspect people as they made their way to safety.

The military had landed and taken charge of the situation. Three soldiers stood behind Eason and another police officer. The soldiers held their guns at the ready. A number of people were yelling at him and the soldiers.

“C’mon those fucking things are everywhere, let us in!” someone shouted.

“You get in once it's your turn,” one of the other police officer shouted.

Across the parking lot at the baseball park came rapid popping of gunfire. The crowd in front of Eason became silent, but the air carried a chorus of distant screams.