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gurney, thrashing against the restraints. It was a bloodied woman, who had probably still been alive when the ambulance crew had picked her up. She must have turned into a zombie on the way in, for she stared at the four men with hollow, vacant eyes, moaning and hissing as she struggled against the belts that were designed to hold a patient in place while in transit. The zombie didn’t even seem to realize they were there. It just tried to climb off the gurney with all its might. The scene was both horrifying and hilarious.
    Reese’s backup, Sergeant Bates, sauntered up to the ambulance with a shotgun of his own. He peered inside the vehicle and grunted.
    “Well, at least it’s on wheels,” he said to Reese. “We could roll it back to the stationhouse and leave it in the men’s locker room. You know at least a couple of the guys will try and take a crack at it.”
    Narvaez turned away from the ambulance and looked toward the paramedics, who were standing nearby. The driver was inspecting his coworker’s injured wrist.
    “You two! Stay right where you are!” he yelled, then nudged one of the soldiers in the side. “Lopatnikov, go keep an eye on them. That guy’s been bitten, so stay sharp.”
    “Yes, sir,” the soldier said, not exactly thrilled with the duty.
    Narvaez turned back to the restrained zombie, then looked at Reese. “Reese, we good to shoot this thing?”
    “Uh, maybe we should get it out of the ambulance first?” Reese said.
    Narvaez shook his head. “Fuck that.” He reached up to the front of his helmet and pulled the bulky set of plastic goggles strapped there over his eyes, then moved past Bates and hauled himself into the back of the ambulance. He motioned the other soldier to move closer, and the soldier did, his M4 still shouldered and held on target.
    “Narvaez, hold on!” Reese said. “We need a doctor to tell us if that lady’s really a … a zombie.”
    The thing in the gurney redoubled its efforts to slip its bonds as Narvaez drew closer to it. It lunged in his direction with enough might to make the ambulance rock on its suspension. Narvaez braced himself against the opposite side of the vehicle and shouldered his rifle, then looked back at Reese.
    “Detective, does this thing look at all normal to you?” he asked. “What do you think a doctor’s going to say—‘Don’t worry, she’s just pissed off’?”
    “You can’t just shoot her,” Reese said, and his objection sounded unconvincing even to his own ears. As he stood there, watching the thing in the gurney thrash about madly in its attempts to get to Narvaez, he could clearly see there was no humanity left in the woman’s body. It was just a vessel now, a vessel filled by a never-ending, insatiable appetite.
    “Your captain said differently.” Narvaez kept his rifle trained on the zombie. “Look, you want me to let the stench go, Detective? Would that make you feel better?”
    Reese didn’t say anything.
    “Do it,” Bates said. “Get it over with.”
    Narvaez pulled the trigger, firing a single shot into the thrashing figure’s head. The ghoul strapped into the gurney stopped moving, sinking back onto the gurney’s frame like a marionette whose strings had been cut. There was no death rattle that Reese could hear, no indication that a life had just passed. The corpse just went back to being a corpse. Narvaez eased toward it a bit, rifle still held at the ready. After inspecting the body for a few moments, he sidled back to the ambulance’s open door and hopped out. Releasing his rifle, he raised his goggles and slipped them back in place across the front of his helmet. There was no joy in his face, but Reese found he was suddenly angry with the Guardsman.
    “So what about that guy?” he asked, pointing at the wounded paramedic who stood nearby, cradling his injured wrist. Both he and his unbitten partner stared at the soldiers and police officers with shocked expressions. “You going to shoot him,