*****
While waiting to hear back from someone on the radio, Captain Wyatt lifted a section of shingles as Thomas leaned into the hole to remove more debris.
Maria coughed loudly and felt sleepy as she listened to the men digging down to her.
Wyatt threw a section of shingles away from the hole and didn't notice the nearby bloody groping hand until it grabbed his shoe. He lost his balance and fell back on top of the large plastic Santa Claus figure, crushing it, but the hand held tightly onto his shoe.
Thomas kept moving boards out of the way and didn't notice the badly mangled nearly skinless hand that Wyatt was staring at.
“Careful Wyatt, the footing is pretty treacherous. Are you alright?” Thomas asked as he turned around holding a jagged piece of wood. His mouth dropped open when he saw the bloody hand pulling on the captain’s shoe.
Wyatt sat stunned on his large butt in the debris as he stared in disbelief at the groping hand.
“Hang on buddy,” Thomas said as he gripped the mostly fleshless hand and pulled the badly injured person out of the pile of shingles.
The fingernails dug into the deputy's wrist as a small avalanche of debris fell away, exposing the man's head which was missing the vast majority of his skull. A bloated brain was nearly completely exposed. It pulsated atop the man's head as he tried to bite the deputy's hand. The bloody fleshless hand had been disturbing enough, but the man it was attached to was a freakish nightmare. From where the eye sockets should have been and up there was just a blackish gray brain and a few small fragments of skull. The man's jaw opened and closed as the teeth continued to try and bite.
“Get back, Thomas,” the captain spoke in a low tone of voice while pulling his pistol out of its holster and fired one well aimed shot at the nearly skull-less man.
The brain deflated like a cake when disturbed while being baked and the man stopped moving.
Wyatt struggled to his feet, slid his gun back into his holster, and once more began moving debris out of the way only slightly faster than before.
Thomas looked back and forth between the captain and the man he'd just shot.
What the Hell? He just murdered someone; right in front of me. He killed that man. He was royally fucked up and probably wouldn't have lived much longer anyway, but- His train of thought derailed at that point. But, what? Hell if I know.
Wyatt looked down the slightly wider hole in the debris and asked the girl, “Can you climb out?”
“I'm pinned under a big piece of wood. My leg is stuck,” she answered between coughs while looking up through the debris.
The hole was just barely big enough for Thomas to squeeze through and he started working his way down into the rubble.
Wyatt keyed his shoulder microphone again, “Albuquerque HQ, this is Captain Wyatt. If you can hear me, we need emergency services out here at Albuquerque Springs Trailer Park and I mean right now!”
Grunting with effort, Thomas used his nightstick for leverage under the beam. The piles of debris groaned and several smaller pieces of wood rained down as the beam lifted enough for her to finally pull her leg free. He wanted to say something, but the increasing smoke made breathing hard and speaking nearly impossible.
Coughing and having a difficult time seeing, Maria hugged him while crying.
The deputy pointed at her then up through the hole.
She nodded and climbed up.
After a few seconds of Thomas pushing from below and Wyatt pulling from above, she was free.
Less than a minute later, Thomas held a water bottle up for her and she gulped at it without spilling a drop until it was completely drained. She sucked at the bottle making the plastic container crush inward before she finally stopped and looked around the devastated garage.
The deputy looked around too and then back at her.
She had an odd expression on her face and raised her hands to cover her mouth, but the enormous belch escaped before she could do so.
“Are they all dead?” She asked, looking at the two policemen with wide frightened eyes.
“Are all who dead?” Thomas asked, as the Wyatt went back to try the car's radio.
She gave him a disgusted look. “The monsters, the-” she paused and appeared embarrassed before whispering, “The zombies. Did you two kill them all?”
“Are you sure you didn't hurt your head?” Thomas asked, looking seriously at her.
“I'm not lying. People have gone crazy here. Some of them died and now they are zombies or... I don't know. It sounds insane, I understand that, but it's all true. Can you just get me out of here, please?”
“I think we better wait for an ambulance.” Thomas said, looking at the top of her head trying to see if she had any possible injury. Her hair was covered in soot, but she didn't have any obvious wounds.
“What about him?” She asked, pointing at the dead man with the deflated brain reclining on some broken boards near the merrily burning plastic Santa Claus decoration. “If he wasn't a monster, why did you shoot him?” Maria looked up at Thomas defiantly.
“I think he was just...um... I think it was just to put him out of his misery. He never could have lasted much longer anyway,” Thomas said in a quiet uncomfortable voice while looking down at his shoes, unable to look her in the eye.
“Don't be stupid. He was already dead when you guys shot him. He was a dead zombie... thingy and moving around. Don't you get it? Why are you so acting so stupid!? We have to get out of here now!” Maria's voice grew louder as she spoke and her last few statements were yells. She tried to stand and staggered in the wreckage of the garage.
“Whoa, easy there, now,” Thomas said, and held her arm so she wouldn't fall.
They heard Wyatt yelling into the handset in the car as Thomas helped lead the girl though the debris.
The deputy's wrist cycled between feeling numb or itchy as he led the way. He glanced down and saw it was red and bleeding lightly. Great, probably got some kind of infection. Stings like a son of a bitch too, probably Tetanus. Oh good for me. I play hero and get to have a bunch of injections at the hospital for the trouble of rescuing a crazy lady who rambles about zombies.
When they got to the hood of the cruiser the captain got out, slid his gun from its holster, and looked around nervously.
“Wyatt?” Thomas asked warily while wondering, Is he going to shoot us now? Has everyone gone crazy today? “What’s going on Brett?” He asked, and placed his hand on his own pistol, secretly worried he might have to shoot his own captain.
“Get the girl in the back of the car. We've got to get out of here, right now,” Captain Wyatt said quietly, staring at the far side of the park.
“It sounded like the Immigration guys had some trouble of their own down there, maybe we should wait for an ambulance and some backup,” Thomas suggested, helping Maria into the cruiser's backseat.
“If I could get a radio signal out of this damn valley I would. According to that Shoemaker guy we need to get out now, while we still can,” Wyatt said, holstering his gun and slipping behind the wheel of the car.
Thomas looked confused as he got in and Wyatt backed the car down the driveway. He wiped his forehead with some napkins and felt a little nauseated while looking down at his slightly bloody wrist, which felt like fire ants were biting it and crawling under the skin. “I don't understand. It’s just a few Mexicans causing all the trouble, right?” Thomas asked, looking at Maria then back at the captain.
“Yes and no. It’s a pack of undead Mexicans coupled with a few undead ICE agents thrown into the mix as well. According to Shoemaker, we just drove into a giant sandbox full of pissed off zombies,” he said without a trace of a smile. Putting the car in gear, Captain Wyatt started driving for the exit.
“I told you so,” Maria said, from the backseat.