The Z Club Read Online Free Page B

“Are you talking about the fact that he looks like a TV dinner that cooked in the microwave too long, or that the top of his head is missing.”
    Judging by Branagan’s expression, it was the latter that had caught his attention.  Stepping closer, Ryan noticed it too.   How the hell does that happen to a guy, he thought.
    The top of the astronaut’s head was missing; scalp, skull, and all.  There were deep grooves in the bone of the skull where the man’s forehead would have been, and Ryan noticed something else: peering down into the man’s head, all he saw was an empty black hole.  The man’s brain was missing.
    Ryan glanced at the medic.  “Hey, your guess is as good as mine,” the medic said.  “I’ve never seen anything like it.  Maybe it’s like those pop-up timers people use during Thanksgiving.  That little red thing pops up when the turkey’s done.  Could be his head did the same thing.  Guy cooked too long and his brain exploded right out the top of his skull.”
    “You’ve seen stuff like that before?”
    “Hell no.  I’m just saying…stranger things have happened.”
    The medic resumed dragging the body, chair and all, toward the ambulance.
    “That seem right to you?” Branagan asked, looking at Ryan.
    “Nope.”
    “What are we gonna do with this fiasco?” Finnigan said.
    “Pawn it off.  Call in the State Police, Aldo.  Have them send a guy out here.  Or better yet, two or three guys.  Let them deal with it.  They can take it up the chain from there.”
    Aldo said, “It happened in the county.”
    “I don’t care if it happened in Lizzie Baker’s back yard.  We’re gonna wash our hands of this whole damn mess before we even get ‘em dirty.  And make it quick.  I want the so-called experts here before any reporters show up.  That cunt from channel 6 would just love to catch me with my thumb up my ass.”
    Aldo headed off for his patrol car, Finnigan kept pace beside him.  They were too far away to hear it when a man screamed.  Ryan saw one of the firefighters writhing on the ground twenty feet away.  He rushed past Branagan, whose reaction time had slowed significantly over the years.
    Ryan reached the downed firefighter, looking up at the other men that had rushed over.  “What happened?”
    “Beats me,” one of the other firefighters said.  “He was fine a second ago.”
    Ryan kneeled down beside the firefighter.  The man had yanked off his helmet and was clutching his head between his hands, squeezing it as though he were trying to keep a bomb from exploding.  His face had gone a deep purple color and the vein in his forehead pulsed and throbbed.  Ryan noticed a faded tattoo on the firefighter’s neck depicting a grinning skull wearing a fire helmet.
    Several of the medics arrived, saw the color of the firefighters face.  “He’s asphyxiating.  Get him in the ambulance.”
    One of the medics grabbed the man beneath the shoulders, another by the legs, and they lifted him off the ground and began carrying him away.  By the time Branagan reached the scene, the medics had already loaded the screaming firefighter into the back of the ambulance.
    “What was that about?” Branagan asked, wheezing after the short jog.
    “Beats me.”
    Ryan spotted a heavy-duty plastic container several feet away.  The lid was one of those springy kind that have a metal latch to hold it in place.  The container was on its side, a haphazard crack running down the center of the plastic, so that Ryan was looking at two halves of the red biohazard symbol printed on the container’s side.
    Branagan took a step forward, starting to bend down to take a closer look at the container.  Ryan grabbed Branagan’s shoulder and pulled him back, shaking his head.  Ryan said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sheriff.  Unless you want to end up like the other guy.”
    Branagan righted himself, nodding.  “I don’t want anyone else getting in till the Staties get