That wasn’t a problem, because he was fascinated by the vehicle. As best he could tell, it was painted onto the windshield for how still it was. If he hadn’t looked ahead to see it move and then stop, he would have thought it was there the whole time, almost drawn into the nighttime landscape.
“Nothing can touch us in here,” he assured himself.
He got antsy the longer the standoff went on. The zombies behind them were almost certainly marching their way, but he couldn’t guess how long they would take.
The black craft’s only tell was its gentle hum. It remained perfectly stationary, minute after minute.
Finally, almost as a relief to him, a door opened from under the main airframe. A long blue beam flicked on, pointed somewhere out of their view. It held that for a few seconds, until the stealthy shape moved the beam in a semi-circle, toward them.
The light crawled over the MRAP and flickered a few times as it got near the glass of the front windshield. An unnerving tick in the back of his brain was yelling at him to crouch down, but another part of him told him to listen to Melissa and stay still.
He kept watch as the light changed from a solid blue beam to a strobe light. The effect mesmerized him, though his mental alarms were as loud as his squad car sirens now.
“Hide,” he told himself.
But he couldn’t. Instead, he broke the rules and turned to see Melissa. The strobing lights formed a grid on her face and she seemed just as captivated as he was.
“Mel, down,” he hissed. He grabbed at her arm and pulled. At first, she seemed upset and resisted, but then she allowed herself to duck beneath the level of the dashboard to be out of the direct line-of-sight of the craft.
“It painted your face with that laser. I think it wanted a mugshot.” There was no evidence to back up his claim, but it was his first impression.
“Did it get me?” she asked, as if in a dream.
“Don’t know. Maybe it got us both. We have to move.” It was critical he not show the panic he felt bubbling around in his stomach. He was reassured by the armor around them, but he couldn’t shake the notion the floating disc meant to do them harm, and the practical side of him knew nothing was impenetrable.
“Nothing good happens after midnight,” his old police captain had assured him. In the Zombie Apocalypse, nothing good happened … ever.
Hands banged on the back doors of the truck.
He and Melissa both lurched with surprise at the sound. She whipped her head around so fast, her ponytail slapped him across the brow.
“Damn!” he shouted without thinking.
“Oh, Phil, I’m sorry!”
He’d been waiting for the zombies to arrive, but the flying disc stole his attention. After taking a second to assure himself he didn’t crap his drawers, he stood up and pulled her with him.
“Go, go, go!” he blurted.
She turned the key and the motor cranked over, to his relief.
“Ram that thing if you have to,” he said as he hopped into his chair.
“But I’m dainty,” she complained.
He felt no remorse about giving her the advice, even though deep down he knew it had to be an alphabet agency or the military operating it. Some jerk wad down in Florida was probably having a good laugh, thinking he’d caught two twitterpated teens in a stolen military rig.
“Just do your best, young woman,” he replied as if she was a student driver but knowing full well she would do whatever it took to get them away from there.
Melissa kept as low as possible while she gunned the engine and sped out of the alley. The flying machine moved a few feet higher, safe from any threat of collision. The blue light continued in its attempt to penetrate the front and side windows as they went by, but it couldn’t have been a better view than painting them directly from the front.
Once they were into the street, and put the drone behind them, the blue light came through a rear window. The thick glass diluted and diffused the beam, but it didn’t make him feel any safer.
They were a hundred yards down the street before she could finally turn to the left and get off that block. The maneuver broke them free of the blue beam and helped close the wide-open faucet of his adrenaline.
Melissa sat up straight in her seat, letting out a heaving breath. “Aliens. I freakin’ knew it.”
“What?” he replied with surprise. “I’m sure that was a drone.”
She tilted her head in his direction, without a hint of humor. “No, aliens caused this. Think about how it makes perfect sense. Get us humans running from each other, then come in and clean up the mess. That little spaceship was primo proof, right sheriff?”
The MRAP rumbled down the four-lane street for many blocks while he caught his breath and considered her wild claim. It was nonsense, but something prevented him from telling her she was off base. In some ways, believing it was aliens was comforting. Up until that point, he’d pretty much assumed the whole zombie disaster was caused by fellow humans. It was kind of nice blaming someone else.
He rode that thought until the next flashpoint.
5
Melissa whipped them through the streets of the western part of downtown St. Louis as fast as the armored truck would go. Before the apocalypse, most streets were two lanes of traffic with a row of parked cars along each side. Now, without the order of parking police, the streets were mostly empty of cars, save a few abandoned or wrecked vehicles. Because they avoided the south and all the zombies in that direction, Melissa had more room to maneuver.
Ten minutes went by before she finally took her foot off the gas.
“Okay, you’re right,” she said with sadness. “I know it was crazy to suggest it was aliens. I’m not sure why I said that other than it made the most sense to me.”
“I wanted to believe that, too,” he replied.
“Seriously?”
He nodded and checked his rearview mirror. “It was safer to think of it as a little alien ship. Otherwise, it means some guy anticipated we’d be in that alleyway and he positioned the drone to wait for us to emerge. That’s pretty frightening.”
“I don’t think they’re still following us, unless it’s hovering right over our heads.” She punched the brakes and looked up through the uppermost part of the windshield. He peered up, too, expecting the drone operator to make a mistake and continue in front of them, but the sky was empty as best he could tell.
“Hmm, did we get away?” she suggested with a voice full of doubt.
“Maybe it’s high above?” he replied.
“Or is behind us, hovering in stealth mode, watching.” She put her foot back on the gas as if to escape the thought.
“We’re definitely on someone’s radar,” he said calmly. Each new flash of imagination made him less confident in the MRAP. They were in a fortress compared to the threat of the biting zombies, but a modern military could take them out with barely a button press. A bomb, missile, or the most primitive of IED’s is all it would take. Whoever built the futuristic-looking drone probably had their own tools for prying them out of the truck.
They drove a few more minutes when he saw salvation.
“I have an IKEA,” he said as if a light bulb had come on. He pointed where he wanted her to go.
“All right, I guess. What’s that going to get us?”
His excitement was on his sleeve. “I’ll show you.”
She drove the MRAP onto the empty parking lot for the IKEA store. The big building sat alone in this part of the city. The blue color was partially lit up by the weak headlights. A gaping rectangular hole stood where the front entrance had been. As they neared and saw the black stains above the doors, it was apparent a fire had consumed the inside.
“In there?” she asked, uncertain.
“Yeah, we can still go in. We don’t need furniture. We need a safe place to park.”
The crinkle of bent metal and falling glass squealed outside the hull of the truck as Melissa drove through the already-broken
entryway. She barely avoided a pair of zombie women shambling near the front door, as if first in line for a sale that would never come.
“Head to the back,” he suggested.
They were not the first vehicle through the doors. Several burnt car hulks sat near the exit, which Melissa deftly pushed aside. The tires had been burned away, and the metal wheels screamed as they shifted on the bare concrete.
“Wow, it smells like camping,” he said. Once on the road they’d cracked their windows a tiny bit to help clear out the stale air inside the truck, but that hadn’t done enough. The odor inside the store was pretty good by comparison.
She took a deep breath. “Must have been all that Swedish wood, or wherever they got it from.”
The fire had long since burned itself out, and as best he could see, everything inside the store had been turned to ash. A few piles of junk might have been furniture or sales kiosks, but he couldn’t make out anything for certain. Not in the pitch dark with two faulty headlights.
“There you go,” he said. He pointed to the blackened EXIT sign over a pair of doors on the back wall.
He unlatched his seatbelt as Melissa pulled up to the doors and flicked off the ignition.
“Beth and I came here the day this store opened. I didn’t see what the big deal was, but she was cuckoo over this stuff.” He was hit with a wave of nostalgia every bit as potent as the wafting scent of the campfire. He forced himself not to tear up at her memory. As much as he complained about it at the time and joked about it with his brothers and sisters on the force, he did have fun that day. Darcy was there, and—
That made him forget the whole line of thinking.
“There’s a stairwell to the roof. Right through there.”
“You want us to get out?” she said with disbelief. “What’s that get us?”
“Grab a shotty and follow me.” He didn’t wait for her.
Phil pulled his service pistol from its holster and moved quickly to the back door. He wiped a few tears from his cheek and berated himself for not holding it together. He wanted to be the strong police officer helping the cute girl in distress, but that wasn’t the true dynamic.
He felt marginally better by the time she joined him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I still can’t talk about them.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “We’ve got nothing but time.” She flicked on her flashlight and kept it pointed at the floor of the truck. The glistening of sticky, dried blood couldn’t be ignored.
He tapped on the back doors. “Once we open her, we’ll search behind us for a minute, then run to the stairs and go up, if it’s all clear.”
“Do we lock the truck?” she asked.
He thought about the chances of someone coming along and stealing it from them. They only needed a few minutes, and the store appeared empty and left behind in all the chaos. Besides the two shoppers at the door, they hadn’t seen any zombies on the inside.
“No, we’ll be quick.” He hesitated for a second before adding, “But still take the keys.”
She unlatched the door, checked for anyone hanging on to the back or roof of the MRAP—it had happened before—and then hopped down the back steps with a flashlight and a shotgun. He followed her with his pistol pointed at the floor, ready for any possible attack.
They stood there and stared into the vast chamber for about thirty seconds. He fully expected the two zombie women to follow them, but he saw their profiles up by the destroyed front doors.
“I can’t believe it’s empty back here,” he said.
“You think they are smart enough to move on when there is no one left alive?” She shined her flashlight over the ashy sales floor, but no zombies came out of the darkness.
He exhaled with relief.
“I guess they all got called somewhere else.”
“Except those two at the front,” Mel replied in a quiet voice. “I feel for their plight, and loved this store when it was whole, but let’s be honest, how the hell are they going to assemble their furniture being like they are? If I turned zombie, I’d go somewhere else, like the North Face store. Even a zombie should be able to pull on some pants.” She quietly let out a nervous laugh.
“You have expensive taste in clothing,” he said as if to playfully provoke her.
“I like … things that last,” she replied with an impish smile.
He gulped loudly but didn’t allow himself to be drawn into what she meant by that. They were exposed to the world and he had to stay focused on keeping them alive.
“Let’s go,” he said in a firm way.
After days of experience working as a team, they seamlessly covered each other as they went through the rear doors of the store. It was a little cleaner, as if there was nothing to burn in the bricked hallway. The steps were easy to find, and they went up three long flights before they reached the fire door to the roof. He ignored the stern warning not to use the door except in emergencies.
“Shut off your light,” he said quietly. “We want to surprise them.”
“Them?”
“The drone operators. If they tracked us from high in the sky, we’ll see it looking for us, but we need our eyes to be prepared for near-total darkness out there.” He spoke with police efficiency and calm, but instantly got nervous when he looked back to her.
She shuffled right up next to him before she clicked off her light.
“We need a couple of minutes for our eyes to adjust,” he said casually. Between the campy fire smell and the powerful mix of perfume and sweat radiating from her body, he felt himself drawn hopelessly in her direction.
“Oh. Really?” she said with sarcasm in the total darkness. “How convenient.”
He holstered his gun and heard the distinct sounds of her slinging her shotgun. Before he realized it was an option, she took both his hands while standing in front of him.
“We have to be sure no one is down below,” he said, trying to sound sensible while ignoring how much his palms started to perspire.
They stood hand in hand while listening for signs they were followed from the stairwell. Each passing second felt like he was under the intense attraction of a powerful magnet and he seemed to get ever closer to what his steely heart really wanted. If a zombie showed up and ruined his moment, he was going to rip it in half with his bare hands.
“Everything is clear, Phil,” she replied after they’d listened for a short time. He felt her voice on his face because she was so close.
“I think we’re alone,” he said in a whisper.
She let go of his hands and put hers around his waist. When he did the same, his hands slid over her exposed core and his heart reacted by shutting its eyes for a few seconds. He’d never in his adult life felt shy around women, but Mel made him feel fifteen again.
When she got even closer, her nose bumped his lips.
“What should we do, now?” she said suggestively.
He separated from her a tiny bit, felt for her ponytail, and followed it to the back of her neck. He intended to guide her lips the last couple of inches, but there was no need because she was already on the way. All his fears and doubts temporarily evaporated as she met him with equal passion.
He kissed her like he’d never have another chance and ignored his conscience as it fretted over how much he enjoyed it. Soon, he was overcome with feelings for the woman in his arms, which confused him even further.
Was it wrong? Was it right?
When they finally came up for a breath, Melissa’s fingers caressed his wet cheeks, exposing the lie of his tough-guy exterior. “Is this okay?” she asked with tender concern.
He still couldn’t see her, which was a relief. Crying never came naturally to him, but the loss of Beth and Darcy had broken something in his soul. Giving himself to another woman so soon felt like a betrayal of his heart, but he knew in his brain his wife would approve of his choice.
“I need you, Mel, as much as I need my sidearm, my St. Michael, or
even food. I couldn’t be here standing in this nightmare darkness without you, but it’s going to take me some time to square up my past, although I do think Beth would have loved you.”
“You’re sweet. I promise I’ll make your wife proud, but I need you, too. We make a good team.”
“That’s undeniable,” he replied with renewed optimism.
“So, sweet guy, did you plan this whole thing to get me up here in the dark, so we could lock lips like two high schoolers in the A/V room?”
He chuckled. “I wish I was that smart. I was in police mode until I needed those two minutes. It just worked out.” She couldn’t see him shrug his shoulders.
“Well, police pursuit, you caught me. I don’t know how you did it, honestly. Not after all the mean things I called you when we first met. But I’m glad you didn’t give up on me back then, or today, in the truck.”
“I guess I just like take-charge women,” he joked.
She pulled back, as if trying to get a good look at his face. “You mean like the slobbering mess of a failure I was at the stadium?”
“Eh, don’t sweat it. You got them all out. That’s what counts. You’re allowed a bad day.” He reached up and ran a hand through her bangs. “Maybe that’s when I knew I kinda liked you,” he added.
“But you stayed with me when the plane took off. That was before you kinda liked me, right?” Even in the dark he could tell she was smiling as she said that last bit.
“Maybe I thought about you once or twice before today,” he agreed. “When you didn’t get out and run, I couldn’t leave you. I wasn’t looking for romance out here,” he admitted, “but it found me. Who knows? I guess I had to see your bad side before I could appreciate your good side. I also sort of thought you were too strong-willed even for me.”
“Now what do you think I am?”
“I think you’re human. In a world full of zombies and endless zombie killing, I find that very attractive.”
“Yeah, I like you, too,” she replied.
“It’s settled,” he mused. “We’re officially in like with each other.”
They both laughed easily.
Undead Worlds 2: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Anthology Page 32