Siren Songs: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 2

by E. E. Isherwood

  “What happens at daybreak?” Victoria had a good point. Sunrise was only a couple hours away.

  “I guess we'll burn one bridge at a time.”

  It was really all they could do. Liam felt bad for the people running outside, but there was nothing anyone inside the house could do for them. The fire was giving survivors some time to escape, though he knew the zombies were relentless.

  They had almost begun to relax. Then, BANG! A gunshot from the kitchen.

  Liam ran to the kitchen, and was dismayed to see his sliding glass back door had been blown to smithereens. A man with a rifle was still pointing it out the open space. Many of the kids had begun crying and the parents were herding them in various directions away from the blown door.

  Another zombie poked around the corner and the man expended another round in it. The shock sent the kids further into hysteria, and even Liam felt his legs quiver a little. There was nothing to stop the zombies from walking in his wide-open back door.

  3

  After the second zombie was put down, no others showed up, so Liam chanced a look out back. It was difficult to see much with the weird shadows being thrown by the fire across the street, but his backyard appeared empty of any infected.

  “We're good for now. We need to secure this door.”

  The kitchen table was a rectangle, so they turned it sideways and set it against space where they back door had previously been. They laid it longways, so they could shoot over the top. But he'd seen what happens when too many dead stack up. If they swarmed his back door, he knew they'd eventually create so many fallen bodies the others would simply climb over them and into the kitchen. It all depended on how much ammo they had.

  Lots.

  Victoria came into the kitchen.

  “Victoria, would you mind taking Grandma downstairs along with all the kids? Then come back up. We'll guard this door together.”

  Marty was standing in the hallway, so heard her name. “Liam, don't you do anything silly now. I'm just an old woman. If things get bad you get all these people to safety.”

  “I'll be safe. I promise. We're going to protect you all.”

  Now Phil and Melissa were in the kitchen. It wasn't long before Victoria returned from her chores. They were standing in the open space where the table had been.

  Phil was the first to speak. “I think we can defend this house against almost any number of zombies, at least in the short term. If we kill enough of them at the entrances, they won't be able to get in the house at all. But, if we kill a massive quantity of zombies we may have other problems with so many decaying bodies so close to us. While shooting an infinite number of them appeals to my baser side, we have to consider the long-term implications of killing indiscriminately.”

  Liam sensed something between Melissa and Phil in that statement, but he wasn't sure what it might be.

  “For now all we can do is lay low and hope the gunshots didn't attract more of those things. There are so many guns going off right now it might not have been noticed.”

  Though his ears were ringing madly, Liam could hear guns up and down the street. How many of the infected were out in the darkness?

  The plan was to keep the kids and the older folks down in the basement, and those with guns would stay on the main floor. They decided the best course of action was to be silent and hope the zombies passed them by. Killing zombies is easy, but cleaning up the dead would probably ruin the small house forever. They needed the infected to keep on moving down the street.

  For the couple hours until dawn, the fire across the street kept most of the zombies occupied. Liam was able clean up, get some food, and get some sleep in the front room while Phil kept watch out the front, and Victoria and the others kept watch out back. He felt far from refreshed, but any sleep was better then none.

  “The infected are beginning to break up across the street.”

  When Liam looked out the front he was shocked to see so many standing there. He estimated there were hundreds of them surrounding the much-reduced fire in Poole's former house. The periphery of the zombie horde was peeling off to search for new distractions. Liam knew what that meant.

  There were a few zombies wandering around his own yard. He suspected they were in back too. Even though it was a warm June morning, he shivered at the sight of so many horribly disfigured and bloody people standing so close to his home. In all the books he'd read on zombies, he never once pictured them here on his street.

  What did I think would happen?

  Liam felt he should have anticipated they would eventually find his sanctuary. Just from what he could see, there were a couple dozen wandering his way. Could they sense there were people close to them? Could they smell them? Were they hearing something inside the house?

  Trouble always seems to find me.

  4

  Once again, Marty was asleep. Had she known she would return to her dream world and see her husband's doppelganger, she probably would have tried to stay awake. He always brought portents of trouble. Or maybe everything which happened to them now was bad; it wasn't just him.

  This dream found Marty and Al on a dark forest road, walking together. The great pines on each side blocked out the stars, though one or two winked at her from between the big branches.

  “Hello Marty. After our last meeting I was afraid what I showed you was too much for you to endure. I know it was one of your darkest emotions. I'm sorry for that. But I'm pleased to see we are here now. This is just as important to witness as was Liam's green car on the bridge. We're coming to it up ahead.”

  Rather than argue, Marty simply looked where he told her to look and walked where he told her to walk.

  “Nothing to say, my dear?”

  Marty was tempted to give him the silent treatment. It was something she rarely did with her real husband, so it didn't feel right doing it to this simulation of him, but his riddles and ill-tidings were wearing on her. The last vision he showed her of Victoria was madness. In the end, it was her indecision which passed for her silence.

  “Fair enough. For now we'll just walk. We have only a short way to go. But I want you to know you are far exceeding my hopes for you. When I first became aware of you I admit I had my reservations—even knowing your potential—because of your age. But it wasn't long before I saw you in action with your Liam to know you have more depth than even I could see. Your perseverance after seeing Victoria die was the clincher. Now I'm confident you'll be able to do what I'd hoped.”

  She couldn't resist such a juicy statement.

  “And what exactly did you hope I'd do?”

  “Find the cure, of course! As I've said before, your first task is to assemble your team in this place to properly wage the kind of sustained battle you must endure to see this to the end. We are doing this in a series of small steps, much like a computer program if I might use but one allusion, to achieve the desired result.”

  “You know, don't you? You speak of computers. Of all the people on Earth you could have selected—” She walked while inhaling deeply, “I'm probably the only person on Earth who has never touched a computer. There have to be lots of people with computers near the source of the plague who could do a better job than me at stopping it? Soldiers. Scientists. Heck, even someone a little younger. Why didn't you take your magic show to one of them?”

  “All I can say is there aren't many people left alive who know where the plague came from or who made it. I didn't have a long list of candidates, and very, very few of them could survive...this place. Even my best guesswork—and I hate guessing—suggests there are only a handful of those candidates left alive. Call them 'source vectors.' As heroes go, you are actually one of the people closest to one of those source vectors.”

  “Hayes.”

  “Yes, Hayes. As a contact in the CDC, I believe he's important in finding clues to how the virus was made, how it replicates, and how it can be stopped. My research is incomplete because he is a remarkably secretive person.”


  “Can't you just ask him? You seem to have a lot of powers. Go into his dreams and Scrooge the buh-jeezus out of him like you do to me.”

  “I have access to a lot of information about the infection, but even I don't know everything, nor can I directly reach out to someone like Hayes. I do believe a solution is out there, a cure, but it is against my directive to give you any information that could change the natural course of events. I can't draw you a map for instance and say go find the X.”

  “That would save us all a lot of time, and probably save a lot of lives.”

  “Always thinking of others. I respect that. I really do. But if I interfered now I would become too much a part of this event. And my directives forbid such interference. Liam would describe this as something akin to my prime directive. That is why you are my champion in this crisis!”

  “Oh my. Lord help us all if I'm the best champion you could find.”

  “You'll do just fine, Marty.”

  They rounded a bend to find a truck parked just off the road inside the coal-black canopy. Marty could hear screams from inside, muffled by the closed windows. She paused when she heard the noise, unsure what she should do. She wanted to help, but she had no weapons. Little strength. Not even a walker. Al took her hand and walked them both closer.

  “As before, I'm truly sorry you have to bear witness to such evil, but this is one facet of your—” Al walked for a long time, saying nothing to finish that sentence. Marty was just about to remind him he was talking…

  “—calibration.”

  They were next to the truck. Some kind of SUV. Dark color. Lights off. The screams were diminishing, but crying could now be heard. Marty could imagine the victim having her blood drained from her, weeping helplessly as it happened.

  “Why are you showing me someone getting assaulted by a zombie? As horrific as that may be, I've seen more than my fair share already.” She tried to pretend she was being brave, but she knew Al could read her mind. She was terrified.

  “Brace yourself Marty. You aren't going to like this.”

  “I never do. Let's get on with it.” The crying was growing louder. But also—something else.

  “I'm sorry for having to lay this on you but this is very much like a chess game. Good vs. evil. Dark vs. light. That sort of thing. You are my white queen, and you should know the truth of your adversaries. But first you should know the absolute truth of your allies. Their souls. It is this truth which will bind you, fortify you against evil.”

  Still, she hesitated. “Al, you know I've been praying my whole life. That is what fortifies me against evil. Is this really necessary?”

  “You can pray if you choose. But God didn't hear the cries of this poor soul.” He was nodding casually to the inside of the truck. “How you respond to this girl's—situation—will define your relationship with her from this moment forward.”

  In a flash Marty knew who was inside the truck. She'd heard the crying before.

  Al walked next to the back window, inviting Marty to join him there.

  She walked as if in a trance. She heard the crying, but the other sound was too incongruous to imagine if an infected person was feeding on another. It was laughter.

  “My dearest Martinette. Behold the final piece of your triad. You three are going to find the cure.”

  She looked inside the window. Al did something to illuminate the scene, or maybe it was her imagination. No way to tell in this place. But she could clearly see the two people struggling in the back seat.

  She was right. She already knew the girl.

  5

  “OH MY HEAVENS! OH MY! NO!”

  Marty's voice was not outstandingly loud anymore, but more and more often she awoke from sleep as if she had fallen off a cliff in a nightmare and woke up with a jarring SPLAT! Upstairs, Liam and Phil both went rigid with the loud yelling in the basement. Liam knew immediately who was making such a racket.

  He whispered to Phil, “Grandma had another nightmare. She's convinced her husband is talking to her in her dreams, but it seems more like she gets beat up.”

  “Well she did talk to my wife and daughter—both dead—and she told me something else...” Phil paused, and Liam leaned in, willing Phil to reveal his secret. “She told me I had to help the trinity of dark angels. They were the only ones who could stop the sirens. Maybe your grandma is seeing those angels?”

  “She never mentioned any trinity. And the sirens did stop, didn't they? They stopped that first day.”

  “It makes no sense, Liam. I've been trying to figure it out since she told me. I really want to know what it means. How I can help. Who I can help. You know?”

  “Well, someone is scaring Grandma in her dreams. I'd like to get in there and give them a piece of my mind.”

  Phil was peeking outside. “Oh man. The sound has definitely caught the attention of our friends. Look at them moving this way. We should probably—”

  Muffled but terse discussion from the kitchen. They could hear what amounted to an argument in progress. It escalated quickly and then they heard Melissa practically yell. “NOOOOOO!”

  Gunshots went off. Very loud. Inside the house.

  “Stop shooting!” This time it was Victoria.

  Phil tapped Liam to go see what was happening. He said he needed to stay in the front.

  One of the dads from the previous night—the same guy who shot out the rear window—had once again rattled off some shots into the back yard. Liam's look must have contained a question because the man responded.

  “That zombie was almost at the back door again. I didn't want to take any chances.”

  Liam didn't feel he had the authority to tell him he may have just killed them all. Shouldn't that have been obvious to the guy?

  Melissa suffered no such doubts. “You probably just attracted every zombie from across the street. You should have just ducked down and let the zombie walk by.”

  “Who put you in charge little lady?”

  Liam could see where this was going.

  Phil ran into the kitchen. “We have to get everyone downstairs. The zombies are coming.”

  “How many?” Liam was afraid of the coming answer. A movie quote echoed in his mind.

  “All of them.”

  Crap.

  It didn't take long before they were secure in the basement. The basement door on the main floor wasn't reinforced, but it was nondescript. It's not like it had a sign on it saying “fresh meat, this way!” Still, Liam couldn't help but feel they'd reached their last move on the chessboard. Once they were discovered, there was literally no way out of this basement for such a large group. There were some small windows, but it would take a long time to get all these people out through them. And then what of the zombies standing right there in the backyard? They were in real trouble, same as those people he saw days ago going down the spiral of the pit quarry. Once they reached the bottom there was nowhere else to go.

  Looking around, Liam could see about a dozen or so children of varying ages. Thankfully no babies who might cry out and reveal them all. Some of the school-age children were silently crying however. It couldn't be helped under such circumstances. He counted three sets of parents, plus Phil, Victoria, Mel, and Grandma. About twenty people against a horde. Was it even possible to resist such numbers?

  Minutes went by.

  Then ten.

  Then they started hearing thuds on the floor above.

  “They're coming in through the broken front windows. I'd bet anything.”

  Thuds continued. Then shuffling of feet across broken glass and the linoleum of the kitchen. The table against the rear door could be heard scraping the floor. It was being pushed inside by zombies coming in from the back yard. The entire floor was crawling with zombies; the floorboards were creaking above his head.

  For a long time they waited, unable to do anything but listen to the noises above and cringe whenever they heard unnecessary noises from the kids.

  Just how good w
as their hearing anyway?

  Minutes continued ticking by.

  Then an hour. The sun was coming up, trickling through the small windows of the basement.

  Kids were getting antsy with the new day. They were unable to appreciate exactly what was happening above, or why so many playmates had to be quiet for so long.

  Another hour went by.

  Giggles from two young girls in the corner.

  A shush from a parent.

  More giggles.

  My god. We're doomed.

  Another shush.

  Then a clear pounding on the basement door.

  Everyone froze.

  More banging.

  Phil moved first, steadying his rifle in front of him, pointing up the steps. The others with guns did the same.

  Phil's instructions were hurried and very quiet. “We want to try to get as many as we can in the doorway. If we can stack them up in front of the entrance to the stairwell, we might be able to block it so none of them can fit through. It's our only hope.”

  More banging. More shuffling. More angry moans.

  Liam was considering backing them all into the secret room. It would put them out of reach of the windows, but it would give them a little more safety in a fallback room. Though it might be the last fallback they'd ever have...

  A new sound overtook them.

  From up above they heard something that sounded like a helicopter, but it was starting and stopping in odd sequences.

  Buzzzzzzz. Buzzz. Buzzzzzz.

  They listened some more, unable to pin it down.

  Buzzzzzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzzzzzz.

  It was getting closer.

  Buzz.

  Then silence for almost a full minute.

  Buzzzzzzzzzz. Buzzzzzzzzzzz. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  The door above was perforated by powerful gunfire.

  They all dove to the ground. A few ricochets sent stray rounds in odd directions inside the house, including some that blew big holes in the cross beams supporting the floor above their heads.