Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel Read Online Free PDF

you,” Sheena said. “Karen’s the same as you. She let’s people get under her skin too much.”
    “Who’s Karen? ” John asked.
    “My girlfriend. She’s a S kipper over at Kilburn.”
    “Your...? Oh, I didn’t realise…” John stammered, looking across at his operator with new eyes.
    Sheena smiled back, amused by his reaction.
    “Is it common knowledge?” John asked, trying to think of anything to say.
    “Not at work, no. Not yet,” the woman replied, “but I guess I’ve got to come out some time.”
    John nodded. “There’s no secrets in this job, that’s for sure.”
    Now it was Sheena’s turn to nod. Karen had tried to keep her personal life a secret from her colleagues, but in the end, they found out and because they knew she was so sensitive about it, they took the piss mercilessly. Sheena was sure that if she’d just been open from the beginning, there wouldn’t have been an issue. As it stood though, Karen was in the middle of pursuing an allegation of bullying in the workplace. Because she had gone to the Department of Police Standards about some of her colleagues, people now tended to go quiet whenever she walked into a room. Karen seemed miserable all the time, no matter what Sheena did to try and cheer her up, and she was thinking of switching boroughs to come and work over here at SX.
    “You know what really winds me up?” John said rhetorically , trying to change the subject by thinking about the call they were heading to. “People expect us to turn up and in just a few minutes, sort out the marriages they’ve let fall apart over years.”
    Sheena didn’t reply. She didn’t have even a quarter of the service John did and the job hadn’t yet made her quite so bitter.
    “Sierra X-ray Two One receiving? ” the personal radios attached to their stab-proof met-vests blurted out.
    “They’re calling us,” John prompted Sheena when she failed to respond. He sighed to himself. Listening to your PR was a basic skill she hadn’t even grasped yet.
    “Sorry,” she said to her driver, then pressed the talk button on her radio. “Calling Two One?”
    “ We’ve just sent an ‘I’ grade domestic through to your box,” the despatch operator at the Command and Control Centre in Hendon informed them.
    “Yeah, I know,” John replied. “Thanks.”
    “Sorry, but you’re the only unit shown available,” the man on the radio continued. “We’ve had a second call from the informant. Just an open line this time. No sounds of disturbance heard.”
    “Received,” Sheena replied into her radio.
    “That doesn’t sound good,” John grumbled.
    “Sierra X-ray from Two Four,” another voice now said over the radio. “Show us assigned as well. We’ll back them up.”
    “Cheers, Spence,” John transmitted in response.
    “Go straight over onto Pursley Road,” Sheena instructed him, using the map on the computer screen, as they approached a double mini-roundabout.
    “X-ray, have IBO done checks on the address?” John asked into his radio now.
    “Yes,” came the disembodied reply after a brief pause, while the CCC operator read the CAD. “No previous for domestics at the victim’s address. Nothing comes back on the address at all. However, there is one previous on the informant’s address; a domestic common assault from a month ago.”
    “Third left after the bridge,” Sheena said.
    She braced herself by digging her feet into the foot well and taking hold of the handle above her door, as the hump of the bridge ahead rapidly drew nearer.
    John paid little regard to the ‘slow’ markings written in the road. The road was a thirty limit but he’d done enough blue light runs on this route to be confident enough to take the bridge at sixty. As they hit the apex, the two front wheels of the car left the ground. Sheena felt her stomach turn over and she held her breath. The tyres reconnected with the tarmac with a heavy thump, as the axle bottomed out on the suspension.
    John