The Last Town (Book 4): Fighting the Dead by Stephen Knight

glasses. She couldn’t. They were half-broken. “No one can get away, and if you don’t feel pain, breaking car windows to get at what you want isn’t a problem.”
    Reese looked up at the overpasses, thinking about what Renee had just said. While the freeway was pretty high up and a couple of hundred feet away, if the dead were using the 101 as a stalking ground, then eventually, they’d come to realize that a few thousand or more tasty treats were waiting for them inside the Hollywood Bowl. Even though the concert hall wasn’t directly visible from the freeway, there was no way to camouflage the presence of so many people.
    Oh, fuck.
    “Okay. Listen, you stay up here near the sheriff’s CP. Go over there and introduce yourself to a big black National Guard guy. He’s their battalion commander, and we were at the hospital together. His name is Morton. Tell him you work for me, and tell him I’m heading up the LAPD presence here.”
    Renee pointed at the table where Fontenoy sat with her pet lieutenant standing watch over her. “What about her?”
    “Morton already knows she’s shot, and she’s not a factor. Pass on to him that I’ve got the LAPD under my control, then make sure the sheriff in charge knows that, too. I’ll be on the street. You know a big lug of a patrolman, Bates?”
    “Yeah, of course.”
    “If you see him, send him down to me. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “And send the rest of the Hollywood guys down. Unless they’re injured, we need them on the crowd.”
    Renee swallowed. “Okay.”
    Reese patted the ROVER handset on his shoulder. “I’m Detective Four King, just in case you’ve forgotten, Detective Four-Two King.”
    Renee smiled vaguely. “I remember.”
    Reese nodded and pointed at the sheriff’s trailer. “Okay. Get going. It’s gonna be a long night.”
     
     
    SINGLE TREE, CALIFORNIA
     
    One thing Doddridge could do, and do well, was run.
    He bolted through the small town neighborhood as fast as he could, weaving through darkened backyards and pausing only a few minutes at a time to rest. When he passed close by a house, he would pause and examine it. No one was outside, and from what he could see, most were glued to the TV sets. Given what was going on in the world, that seemed like good advice. He’d watched the news for a couple of hours at the old lady’s house, and he still couldn’t believe what he’d seen on the boob tube. Zombies? What the fuck? He still couldn’t get his mind wrapped around it, and he wondered if maybe he should have just stayed in prison.
    But that was hours ago. Now, he was back in his element. Or, to be more precise, one aspect of his element: running like hell from the cops.
    As he ran, he cut diagonally away from the highway, putting some distance between him and the traffic that had the roadway clogged up like a sink full of old hamburger meat. There were too many people there, too many opportunities for him to be seen. As he stepped around the corner of a small house, a column of lights barreled down the street. He crouched and sidled toward a reel of garden hose mounted to the side of the house—not a lot of cover, but it would have to do—and watched as three Ford Expeditions zipped past, heading in the direction he had come from. The cops back at the house he and his crew had taken over had Expeditions, too. So these were more badges, heading south to figure out who was who. It wouldn’t be long until they started combing the town, looking for him.
    He waited a few beats after the SUVs had disappeared into the deepening night, then scuttled across the street, crouching like he was a soldier in an episode of that old TV show Combat his older brother had loved, holding the shotgun in both hands. He was glad he still had the jacket he’d clipped from the prison bus. It was starting to get genuinely cold now, and he would eventually have to figure out which of these homes he was going to break into. He figured hitting one up on the