Ilia’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He lunged at her as she’d seen so many rioters do back on the streets. She sidestepped him, using a move she didn’t know she had. More luck than anything, she reasoned. Or adrenaline. Or training in dance. Whatever it was, she ran like hell for the cockpit.
Unsteady on her feet, she bounced from side to side a few times on the thirty or so feet up the hallway. She stood in the doorway of the front cabin, amazed at how large it was. It wasn’t just two pilots in their seats up by the window, there were six other air force officers in two rows of chairs behind the lead pilots.
“Help,” she screamed.
When the nearest man saw her, he shrank at her appearance. Half-naked. Splattered head-to-toe in blood. Panic in the eyes.
He briefly looked at the man across from him, then jumped out of his seat and lunged at Liza.
The other man screamed, “Shut the door.”
In seconds she was pushed back and the door slammed in her face.
“You bastards,” she shouted.
“Help,” she repeated, with very little hope.
As she said it, Ilia crashed into her from behind. They bounced off the door and tumbled into the middle area of the flight deck just outside the door, which had just enough room for the two of them to wrestle on the floor. On any other day it would be a rough, insanely short match. Ilia was at least twice her size. But she had the advantage of being covered in blood and wearing little clothing for him to grip.
She repeatedly screamed for help.
Ilia flailed in anger, and yelled and screamed with greater volume the longer she struggled. At first he was on top of her, but she squirmed to one side and rolled up on top of him. That made it almost impossible for him to establish a hold on her, though she couldn’t get away, either.
To her surprise, Ilia started to yell obscenities and curse words at her. No words besides those. Just bad words. Often the king of the hill words. It was like he was broken.
He’s dead, she thought, accepting it.
No. He’s not, she replied to her own inner voice.
The knife was still there, flopping from side to side as Ilia reached up for her.
Kill him again.
She reached her smaller arms through Ilia’s larger claws and gripped the knife. She took a deep breath as she yanked on it.
“Damn!”
She couldn't move it.
She slid her feet so one was on each side of his chest as he lay upon the floor flailing against her blood-slick legs. With everything she had, she pulled, and the knife broke free with a sickening slurp.
She raised it, telling herself this wasn’t the Ilia she had known for so many years. That man was an ass, yes, but not a murderer. Not a rapist. The riot did something to him, broke something in him. And now—
She drove the blade into Ilia’s face, pulled it out and slammed it in again and again as she screamed, “Dammit. I. Want. To. Live!”
Rage engulfed her and she zoned out.
Someone finally grabbed her arm.
“Goddammit, no!” she yelled, twisting her arm loose from the air force officer. “Nobody gets to touch me. Not anyone. Never. Nyet!”
She stood up and glared down at what was left of Ilia. She was quite certain whatever he had become would never rise again. She turned and ran down the hallway, stopping only to pick up the remains of her blood-soaked clothes. A few of the other pilots came out of their safe area to watch, but she didn’t care.
“No!” she yelled at them.
She jumped over Zia, then shot into the berth where she’d been sitting before everything went to hell. In a few minutes she’d pulled her curtain, kicked the table closed, and put on her clothes.
For a long time she paced like a lioness, all that had happened tumbling in her mind like logs in a flood.
Eventually, she sat down, spent. Minutes later she was asleep.
27
She was pleased with herself when the plane came to a stop. It had been a long flight, but other than watching Zia's body get dragged away, she had very little to do and wasn’t bothered by anyone. Not even Pavel.
There was plenty of time to think as they arced over the North Pole and sailed across Canada into the United States. She waited hour after hour for someone to come in and arrest her for murder. Or ask a few questions. Or just care.
But no one came.
The landing was anticlimactic. The pilot’s voice announced it was time to leave, and directed people to begin unloading. But one of the pilots added a little something extra, just for her.
“On behalf of Yuri Saratov’s personal flight crew, we wish Yelizaveta Saratov every luck in her new endeavor in this country. Mr. Saratov sends his regrets he cannot join you. All the crew has been directed to help you get started on your mission. However, the flight crew must return the plane to Mr. Saratov, along with the accident victims.”
“So that’s what they’re calling them,” she thought. “How convenient.”
She got out of her chair, stuffed the baton into the waistband of her pants, and stormed through the hallway to the ladder down to the cargo hold, all the while worried they were going to dump her out the back door and take off.
Fine if they do, she said with growing resolve. I'll just keep right on walking.
The rear cargo door was already open when she made her way to it. That's when Pavel stopped her.
They looked at each other with wary acceptance. He pulled out a cigarette and offered another to her, which she accepted. “I’ve been talking to him,” he said simply.
“Oh?”
“He's sorry you had to go through that, but happy you're safe. Ilia lost it.”
“No shit, he did. And no thanks to you, and no thanks to the scum in the cockpit.”
“They give you trouble?” he said with some doubt.
“They did nothing to help me. Even when I was practically dead at their door,” she said, feeling the embers of her earlier anger.
“No one is going to help you, Liza. Not if they have to risk their own lives. That's not how people are.”
It didn't make her feel any better. She leaned in to get a light, expecting him to give it to her. In response, he looked her over from head to toe, but not in a slimy way.
“You look like you’ve been run over by a train. Is that his blood?”
“Mostly. Some it belongs to the flight attendant he stabbed to death.” She took a deep drag and blew it near his face.
“I thought he went zombie on you?”
“Is that what we’re calling it? No, he went crazy. He fought with a knife in his chest. I think he was on crack or meth or whatever you call it.”
“Perhaps,” he said without committing. “But most people would have called him a zombie. While we’ve been in the air, the whole world has been overrun by things just like him. I listened on the radio, hoping my city survived. An infection is burning through cities and nations. That’s how we could fly right into St. Louis without so much as an immigration form.”
“St. Louis?” she said with surprise. “I thought we were going to Dan-fer?”
“There was one little hiccup. Some F-22’s turned us away from Denver. Said all air traffic still operating over this part of the country was being redirected to St. Louis.”
“I'm being left here?” Her voice was more skittish than she preferred, but she couldn’t help it. How far was Denver from St. Louis, she wondered.
“Yuri thought of everything. He’s giving you one of his toys. An early anniversary gift. Worth much more than your wrecked car.”
“I can't go back? But I thought—”
She steeled herself to confront him. “Pavel. You told Ilia we slept together.”
He laughed a knowing laugh. “This again? That's just dumb things boys say.”
“Damn you, Pavel. He told Yuri!”
Pavel sucked deeply on his smoke. “Then he screwed us both,” he said in a sour voice.
“Do you t
hink he sent me on this plane because he thought I cheated on him?”
“I assure you, Liza, even a man with his wealth would not send you on one of the biggest planes in the world just so he could prove a point. He thought he was delivering you to Denver, with the tools to cross whatever roadblocks you may encounter there. He wanted to save you.”
“Then why is he leaving me alone? You all are going back home.”
“Ilia said you'd fail. He explained you need to be more like military man Cortes when he burned his boats, and less like clueless Marie Antoinette, if you want to survive this blight upon humanity.”
She flashed anger. “What does that even mean?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe it means you'll do fine on your own.”
“I’m getting kicked off my own plane. Then I have to cross a foreign country. Is this a joke?”
“Not my joke if it is. I get to fly back home and tend to my own family, as he promised. If he doesn't disown me for saying I slept with you,” he said with regret.
They both became quiet.
“I just hope it isn't too late.” He tossed the butt off the back of the plane. “Let me show you what he’s leaving you.”
She stared out the ass end where cargo would soon be unloaded. The terminals of the airport looked like anywhere else in the world, but she had no idea what was beyond. What would she find in St. Louis? In Denver? In the lands in between?
“This should be fun,” she lied, tossing out her own half-spent cigarette. She briefly imagined herself as that American action hero when she was gazing in the mirror. It was a far better image than the woman twirling carelessly in front of the mirror before the horror struck. Yuri believed in her. Now she was going to believe in herself.
Many other planes were parked nearby, though none were remotely as large as the Anatov. It made her feel part of something more important.
When she turned around Pavel and the other men had the tarp pulled most of the way off the item they’d been transporting since they left Yuri’s auction company.
Pavel stood in front of it with his arms crossed, grinning like a father presenting his daughter with her first automobile.
“He got me a goddamned tank? Why couldn’t he get me a helicopter?”
Pavel deflated just a little.
“And if he had, what good would that have done? I told you they wouldn’t let our beautiful Condor in. No aircraft are allowed. You have to go by foot, or if you are the lucky wife of oligarch Yuri Saratov, owner of this marvelous upgraded T-72, you go inside a steel shark cage like this.” He banged the front of the tank.
She sighed, daring herself to accept Yuri’s gift.
“But I’ve never even held a gun.” She’d watched Yuri play with guns many times over the few years they’d been wed, but she used that time to talk to other wives while drinking fine wines.
“Don’t worry about that. You aren’t going alone. Yuri sent the best tank crew he could find so you don't have to worry.”
“This is insane, you know,” she said somewhere between disbelief and thankfulness.
“Remember your history, Liza. During the Great Patriotic War wealthy women would finance tanks and drive them directly out of the factory to go fight with the men. You are merely keeping that fine tradition. The warrior spirit of the Russian Mama Bear.”
She thought of Mrs. Ivanich. She's be someone she'd want in her tank with her.
“Will you come with me?” It was dangerous to suggest. She desperately wanted a friend, but what would Yuri think?
“No, I told you. I’m on this plane when it goes back to Russia. I can help my family survive.”
“Will you please tell him the truth about you and I? It breaks my heart Ilia told him those lies.”
He nodded solemnly, then used his finger to invite her close.
She stepped toward him. The engines still spun, even though they were parked on the tarmac. They’d been just shy of shouting at each other, so now they could talk at a few decibels above normal.
“You can refuse, you know. You can tell him no thanks, pack up with the rest of us on the plane, and go back home.”
“I can tell him no? We’re still talking about Yuri, right?”
“These are strange times. He has many things going on. This plane and all these people were tasked with getting you here, but he never said you had to stay.”
“I can say no,” she said under her breath.
She walked to the side of the tank, shocked again to see the condition it was in. There were numerous rust stains, welding lines, and bare metal. It looked like it had been in a trash pile.
“This can make it to Denver?” She was considerably less enthusiastic the closer she inspected it.
“Don’t you know anything about your husband? Things are seldom as they appear. This,” he banged his hand on one of the side skirts, “looks like crap, but I assure you she has it where it matters. She’s been fully restored underneath. He wanted to use it as a marketing vehicle for his company. Now he can use it for real.”
The name stenciled on the turret was Anastasia.
“So I can stay here with the tank and maybe find a cure for whatever bit me, or I can go home and—do what? Die?”
He shrugged again.
Not knowing what else to do, she put her hand on the metal of Anastasia. At the same time the engine roared to life, spewing black smoke all over the hold. She felt the rumble through her hand and arm, and she thought of the angry bitch slashing Ilia to stay alive. Old Liza was dead, she decided. She suicided, after all. Where she died she couldn’t say. But she was gone.
Pavel took a step back.
She put her ear on the side of the tank to listen to the engine directly. It helped drown out the brain-damaged buzzing in her ears. The old Liza would never have deigned to touch a tank, to say nothing about driving it in public. Being seen in such a vehicle would be a death sentence to the woman she once was. At least socially, where everything important used to happen.
But that was all gone. Drowned in the blood of her attacker.
“Nyet! I’m not going back. Not ever. I only go forward.”
Pavel’s face registered surprise. Then he nodded to her and indicated she should walk toward the hold’s exit at the back. “Then lead her out the door.”
The two of them walked down the rear ramp, followed by her new acquisition. She was anxious to try it on for size and see what it could do.
Pavel tapped her. “Welcome to the world of zombies, Liza. You've got to think like a soldier. Keep your head inside and the track-side down and she’ll get you to Denver in one piece.”
For the first time in years, her smile wasn’t fake.
###
Sample from Since the Sirens
Please enjoy a 1-chapter sample from Since the Sirens, which is the first book in my Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series. You will note the title of the chapter matches the name of this book. That is intentional.
Chapter 0: World of Zombies
At fifteen, a young man of Liam’s average size and weight wouldn’t even attempt to double-wield shotguns. Most men twice his age, even those in the military, wouldn’t try it in battle. But they weren’t the hero. He was. A wild-haired, lanky, scholar-athlete wannabe who just happened to be good at this one thing.
“Lock and load. I’m going in.”
“Wait up,” JT cried out as he fiddled with his sniper rifle. “I can’t take this thing in there. They’ll be on top of me before I can use it.”
“I’d use the fifty-cal if I were you.” Liam couldn’t heft such a large weapon, but JT was built like a college linebacker, even if he acted more like the fifteen-year-old wimp he’d been before the world went to hell.
“Nah. Not enough ammo. Used it all on the bridge. I’m going with these.”
Liam chuckled at his friend. The young man wore a get-up more commonly found in a biker bar—all black leather pants and jacket adorned with silver studs. His white t-sh
irt was as clean as when his mom set it out for him—Liam wasn't going to tell him how he knew that. Somehow, it all worked. The young man also dual-wielded his choice of weapons but with much more practical .357 Colt Pythons.
“I wish some of the other guys were here,” JT huffed as he broke down the rifle and prepped the revolvers.
Liam felt the same way, but Charlie and Jacob both fell in the fight to get them to the end of their mission. He had a few extra seconds to ponder their mistakes so he could avoid ending up like them. He looked to the sky.
They're Dead. Just a lousy spectators, now, he thought.
JT finally gave him the go ahead. “I’m ready.”
Liam pulled at the door of the secret government base they’d been searching for, though he stopped to consider his fortune. The cure to the plague was inside, as were the men and women responsible for creating the mess in the first place. With a little luck, they could take care of them both in one glorious battle. He briefly imagined the cheering crowds of survivors. The young women anxious to thank him. Fifteen or not, he'd be heralded for this.
“I said I'm ready,” JT repeated.
“I'm going!”
The expected white lab coats were there, but the people wearing them had already been infected with the Six-Sigma Virus—so named because it killed with ruthless efficiency. He didn’t dwell on the tantalizing beakers and vats of bubbling green liquid. The cure—if it existed—was useless in the moment. If they had it, why didn't the scientists use it? The answer was grim. Those ruined people had to die, just like all the others. The New World demanded blood, not a fabled cure.
“Let ‘em have it,” he shouted.
He selected his first target for the automatic combat shotguns. She was a brunette in the stereotypical white ensemble which reminded him more of a mad scientist than a CDC employee. He avoided looking directly at the smiling face on her ID badge affixed to her chest.
“Die, zombie scum!”
The trigger pulled easily on both his weapons. Together they more or less removed the woman’s rotting head from her shoulders, precisely the way he was supposed to do it. Of all the different types of zombies he’d read about and seen in movies, it was the one consistent piece of knowledge applicable to all of them. Remove the head, and you eliminate the threat.
World of Zombies Page 10