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racing down the hall.”—James Gunn, screenwriter for the remake of Dawn of the Dead :
     
     
“As a veritable disciple of Romero, the slow is the way to go. The idea of smashing slow zombies with a bat still appeals to me. However, I do believe there is a place for the fast zombie. Very intense and very frightening, the speed and relentlessness is very scary. 28 Weeks Later illustrated that with perfection in the opening scene on the British countryside, when the protagonist was running from the hideout and the creatures were close to cutting him off from the hills at the angle they were taking. Very scary.”—Bowie Ibarra, author of Down the Road: A Zombie Horror Story and Down the Road: On the Last Day (both from Permuted Press).
     
     
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    Once the 911 call has been made, the central dispatch will contact the specific unit whose patrol route covers that location. “In rural counties,” Brennan says, “one dispatch center is often used for all of the surrounding towns. Computers and radio reports track the general movement of available units. If the car that would normally respond is handling another complaint, at lunch, doing transport or any of the thousand other jobs that police officers routinely handle, then the request for responding units is broadened. In very serious crimes this might result in units responding from several neighboring towns.”
    For violent crimes, like the one reported here, and one where the suspect is believed to still be at large, a fair number of cars would roll.
    According to Greg Dagnan, CSI/Police/Investigations Faculty—Criminal Justice Department, Missouri Southern State University, “The dispatcher will keep the caller on the phone while emergency responders are in route. This process also encourages the caller not to hang up in case police can’t find them or some other unexpected event occurs. Police are usually the first to enter a scene like this even if others (fireman, ambulance) beat them there. Police must ensure that responders will be safe while lifesaving measures are performed.”
    911 operator Fredericka Lawrence adds, “The constant contact between operator and witness not only saves lives, but it keeps the witness on the scene, which means that the officers and detectives will have someone they can interview. That speeds up the entire process.”
    The Zombie Factor
     
    The scenario we’re using to make our examination of the zombie outbreak is one seldom ever shown in the films. We’re working with the actual patient zero , the central or “initial infected person” in an epidemiological investigation. If patient zero is stopped in time, then there will be no plague to spread; if he’s stopped too late, then every person he bites becomes a potential disease vector.
    The good news is that in the real world these things often start small. One zombie out there and a whole police force against it, with all the might and technological resources that can be called to bear, should be able to do the trick. It would be less dangerous than, say, a group of hunters trying to subdue an escaped lion or tiger. Dangerous, yes, but doable.
    The bad news is that the zombie has to be seen and identified as a disease-carrying hostile vector. That’s not going to happen quickly or easily, and probably not at all during this phase. Diseases are invisible, so the police will likely react as if the assailant is either mentally unstable or whacked out on drugs. Or both. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because suspects demonstrating odd and irrational behavior are treated as if they are very dangerous. Extra caution is used, more backup is called, and greater safety protocols are put in place. On the level of one (or at most a few) of the slow, shuffling zombies, the police department is more than ready to meet the challenge.
    In our scenario, our witness has seen a strange and apparently drunk or stoned individual attack someone else and then stagger off in to the