“Well, we can warn them. Help them.”
His head continued to shake.
She couldn't contain the exasperation. “What? Why are you against everything I say?”
“Liam is already on his way. If you had a helicopter maybe you could catch him, though finding him would be difficult. He isn't going to wave you down. He's going to hide.”
“You could guide me. Do that DNA talking thingy. You could-”
“Lana, listen. Maybe I could get you to him. Maybe. I want your help because of something I know you can do. A way to help Liam on the ground in a way no one else on Earth can do right now.”
She searched his eyes for sarcasm, but he wasn't joking.
“No one else?” she said with her own biting wit.
“You ran an entire revolution from inside your son's video game. I think that makes you pretty special.”
It didn't feel that special to her, but she did use Liam's World of Undead Soldiers game to communicate in secret with other cells of the Patriot Snowball movement. What started as a hundred marchers in the middle of America picked up steam with each town they passed until they had millions of protesters in the procession. They made it as far as the gates of Washington D.C. itself. That flashpoint is where the zombie virus was weaponized and used to push back the marchers.
She was tired of arguing. “You want me to let my own son wander across the apocalypse without my help, hoping he can make it across half the country to someplace in Colorado?”
“That's not what I had in mind at all. Will you let me explain?”
Thinking she had nothing to lose, she listened as he laid it out. Several times she looked over her shoulder as he outlined what the waterfall represented, what he'd told Liam and Marty, and how the trio fit into the scheme he'd dreamed up.
When he finished, he added one last chip to sweeten the pot for her.
“You have to return to St. Louis to help slow down the bad people crossing the country. Not all are stopping in that city. Some are going to continue west to try to capture Liam.”
“Why? Why can't anyone just help Liam and fix the world?”
“I wish that were the way of things. One of the unique qualities of mankind is that it often does things that are against its self-interest. Odd to be sure, but I've come to appreciate that is what drives you to greatness as well.”
“You are talking crazy again.”
“I know,” Al said with a smile. “Wars are illogical and self-defeating, but they also drive technology to new heights. Many of your advances have come from war, including the very coding that allowed you to hack into this server and change the course of history.”
“And I can change all that?”
“Yes. Yes, you can.”
Her last memory of the meeting was shaking Al's hand.
6
Lana woke with a start and checked her watch. It was a little past five. She pinched her cheek, unsure what was real.
“Would I know I wasn't dreaming?” she thought. “Or, as Al said, would I know if I was dead?”
She assumed those were questions for philosophers. The only one she really cared about had to do with Jerry.
“Hey, sleepy. Wake up,” she called with a loud voice.
Jerry hadn't moved from where he sat against the tree.
“Am I still alive?” he asked.
“I was just wondering the same thing,” she said with a friendly laugh. “About us both.”
He briefly looked up to the sky. “Looks like we're in nautical twilight. We moving out, boss?”
“Oh, Jer. I had the worst dream.” She fell onto his chest like she was earlier. It calmed her after so much excitement.
She told him everything she could remember, up until the business end of the meeting when Al instructed her to meet a helper, then engage in dangerous activity in St. Louis.
“We have to find Liam,” he said when she was done. “We can't let this happen.”
She sighed and listened to the rise and fall of his chest for a few minutes. Thinking.
“Lana?” he asked while stroking her hair. “You in there?”
A distant bird chirped in the dawn, testing whether it was too early to begin the day's chores perhaps. She imagined the whole world in its own deep breath. The pause between the start of the disaster and whatever was to come next. A strange version of Jerry's grandfather had swooped in and changed the trajectory of her whole life. Instead of spending every moment getting back to her son, her mission was to head in the opposite direction. It was always a long shot to find him, but it felt like giving up. Even if what Al said was completely true. A point she wasn't sure she believed.
“I think it's crap,” Jerry said, breaking the silence. “I literally came back from the dead. I've gotten to see my wife. By God I'm going to see my son.”
But she didn't feel the same. Of course, she wanted to see Liam, but Al spoke of helping him by focusing on her own expertise. If everything worked out, there was a chance Liam could reach Colorado and reverse the destruction that had befallen humanity because of a rogue company and their illicit computer program.
Could it be that simple?
“Jerry, my love, I want to see Liam more than you can possibly know. But the odds of us finding him in this world is next to nothing. If Al was telling the truth, Liam is on his way to do something important. If Al was lying, and Liam didn't survive Cairo, I don't think I want to know the truth.”
“But-”
She waved him off. “Let me finish, dear. Whether Liam is alive or dead, we know there are some bad people in this world who are taking advantage of the chaos. I saw a good number of them when I was Elsa's prisoner up in St. Louis. And-”
She thought of Haylee and Travis smiling at her as they stood on an empty Interstate a few months prior to the arrival of the zombies. They were the core leaders of the Patriot Snowball movement. She left the other two a couple of days ago when she struck out on her own to chase after Liam.
“And I think I can do the most good by going back and helping run things in St. Louis. They're going to need all the help they can get if half of what Al said was true.”
“How does that help us find Liam?”
“It doesn't,” she said, fighting back tears. That prompted her to sit up, so they were looking at each other. “It doesn't.”
“Then, baby, why?”
She chuckled through the tears. “I was so mad at Liam for leaving me when we were both downtown. When we were safe in that building. But I was madder at myself for not realizing the truth: there was nowhere safe. There still isn't. Hasn't been since we grabbed our rifles and went looking for him at Marty's and there won't be again until someone does something.”
“Going back to St. Louis,” he said simply. “You want to fight?”
She nodded. “I want to continue the battle Rose started and Haylee and Travis continued.”
Rose was a name mentioned by Al in their planning discussions at the waterfall. She was Lana's mother-in-law and was a Congresswoman from Colorado. Much of Lana's responsibilities the past few months was passing communications between the Snowballers and their biggest supporter in government. Eventually, Rose had to go into hiding for that support.
Lana paused a moment, but then continued her train of thought. “Government troops are under the control of Elsa's people. We have to fight them. Separate them, if we can. But most of all we have to stop them in St. Louis.”
“Why there?”
“There's a convoy of millions of people coming from the East Coast. St. Louis is to be the new capital of a rump version of America. The coasts are lost to the zombies. They want to hold the center.”
“Maybe that's a good thing? Get some order back. Some security.”
She shot him an ill-look, but also couldn't help but grin at the irony. “Jerry Peters. Doomsday Prepper. Are you actually saying you want your arch-nemesis the government to set up shop in the very city in which you live? I do declare,” she
said, ending in the dialect of a southern belle.
“I'm sorry, but I've been dead a while,” he laughed. “What would you have me do?”
“We have to fight. We have to keep Elsa and her team from having five free minutes to go find Liam. We have to keep them so invested in St. Louis they'll forget Liam is moving away from them.”
“You want us to fight at the Black Gate,” he said matter-of-factly. “Is that it?”
“I don't know what you mean.”
He giggled. “It's from a movie. Don't worry. I know you want us to be the decoys and I'm in. It goes without saying, my love, I'd follow you into Hell itself. I would have before I died but coming back from the dead makes me feel invincible.”
“Well, don't forget you aren't,” she said with a bit of a bite. She hopped to her feet and pulled Jerry to his.
He swayed like the dizzy spell had come back but seemed to recover faster this time.
“Where are we going, boss? We have one knife between us, no food, no supplies, and I'm still feeling woozy, so we really aren't ready to take on an entire city.”
7
“That way,” Jerry suggested while pointing away from the river.
“Any reason?” Lana asked.
“Unless we find a speedboat lying around we are going to need a vehicle to get back home. I figure we can't be too far from some kind of road. Hopefully we can find someone living who can help us. A friendly farmer, for example.”
She stepped into some brambles and held back one of the branches, so Jerry could go through unharmed. His white teeth seemed to shine as he walked by, but her mood cratered when she caught sight of the dark splotch on his shirt where she pulled out the knife.
“Does your side hurt? I wish I could patch you up.”
“No, strangely it doesn't. It itches like crazy but doesn't hurt.”
“Wait a second,” she said as she held his arm to stop him. “Take off your shirt.”
Jerry stood there for a moment and then shrugged. “When the wife says drop ‘em, I drop ‘em.” He chuckled as he undid the buttons down the front of his loose-fitting denim shirt. Once it was off, he spun around.
Lana rubbed the tips of her fingers over the wound, sure she was going to cause him to wince in pain, but he didn't make any noise at all. The wound had sealed itself and appeared to be more of a scar than an open knife cut.
“This doesn't hurt?”
“No, not at all. In fact, if you keep touching me in that way ... ”
She pulled back as if struck by lightning.
“Oh, I didn't mean anything,” he blurted.
“No. I'm sorry. It's me. I've got so much on my mind I almost forgot what it would be like to have you back in my life, and touching you is the last thing in the world I thought I'd be doing at this very moment.”
“But you don't think of me as a creepy dead man, do you?” he said with a hint of doubt.
“Not at all.” She spun him around and pulled his face to hers. “I love you, Jerry Peters. More than you know. You have a heartbeat and you are warm to the touch. The second we have some peace and quiet and we don't smell like moldy laundry pulled from a river, we're going to rip off all these clothes and celebrate life together. But for now, I--”
Two headlights turned on from some trees about fifty feet away. They both turned toward the lights as if they were two teens caught on Lover's Lane.
“What do we do?” she said with incredulity.
Jerry didn't respond. He seemed as frozen in place as her.
She considered running, but the occupants of the vehicle were already out and walking into the beams of light. It wasn't so dark that the headlights cast the newcomers in shadows, but her eyes took a moment to adjust.
“You still have that knife,” Jerry finally whispered.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Lana and Jerry is that you?” a woman called out.
Lana wondered if this was all a setup after all. Someone put thoughts in her mind that she was talking to a dead relative, but it was some way to track her down. All her plans to return to St. Louis to fight as part of the group of patriots would end in failure if she was caught.
She took a step backward as if ready to run.
“Lana and Jerry Peters? I'm Mel. This dark drink of water next to me is Phil. We've found you, so we could rescue you and your family.”
“Mel?” Jerry replied softly so only Lana could hear.
“Could it be?” she asked.
“Where is the last time you saw me?” Jerry called out in a loud voice.
“Beaumont,” the woman replied. “Phil and I left with some scouts in this MRAP to go rescue your son, which we did by the way. Now we're here to do the same for you.”
“And how'd you find us?” Lana finally said.
“It's a long story. It involves Hayes, a DNA tracker, and a whole lotta luck.”
“I think she's telling the truth,” she whispered to Jerry.
“Yeah, they could kill us if they wanted. I think we have to go with them.”
“Shall we?” she said while waving her hand to show Jerry the way.
“Oh, no, ladies first,” he motioned back to her with the same gesture.
“Fine,” she replied heavily. Her exhaustion and the ups and downs of the last 24-hours was like a physical weight pressing on her shoulders as she trampled over the thick underbrush to meet Mel.
“We're coming out!” Jerry shouted from behind her.
“We're unarmed, mostly,” she added. It seemed prudent not to be seen as a threat, just in case it was some kind of trick.
“Hi,” Mel said simply when they came to within a few feet of her. She had a weapon slung on her back but appeared otherwise unconcerned about security.
Lana looked at the woman for a long moment and then burst into tears of joy. “Mel! You have no idea.”
The two women hugged. Mel also cried but made more of an effort to hold it together. “I'm so happy to see you two. You have no idea what we went through to get here.”
Lana pulled out from her hug and looked at Mel in the young light of the day.
“Ha! I think we have you beat on strange stories. Jerry was dead.” Lana pointed at her husband standing sheepishly nearby.
Mel leaned over and looked at him standing there.
“The broken leg looks good, too,” she said.
Jerry nodded. “I've been given an upgrade, apparently.”
The next few minutes were a flurry of catching up all that had happened to each of them over the past two weeks since they'd last been with each other. For Lana and Jerry, the centerpiece of their story focused on how Jerry had died and then been brought back to life by something Elsa had done to him. For Mel and Phil, it centered around being found by Hayes, spending some time in the St. Louis county jail, and then being released with a tracker to go find Liam and his family.
Liam was the thread that tied them all together, even when he wasn't there with them.
“We can find him with this,” Mel said when she showed them the tracker. “We came for you guys, first, because you weren't moving around as much. It has some trouble when the location shifts quickly, like if the target is moving fast. Liam and Victoria have been getting around,” she said with a laugh.
“Where are they now?” Lana asked anxiously.
“Not far. They've been flying and boating between St. Louis and Cairo so much that we've gotten whiplash driving back and forth to try to keep up. Last night they finally stopped, but we were already heading for you guys. They seemed to be lodging at a farmhouse twenty miles from here. We can snatch them up, but first I think you should see this person.”
Mel held out the device and the little screen showed a map with a red blip turning on and off.
“This seems to be in the middle of the Mississippi River,” Jerry said when he saw it.” Lana and I just came from there.”
Mel nodded. “You'll never guess who this is.”
“Victoria?”
Lana asked without conviction.
“Nope. She's with Liam.”
“Good,” Lana said with relief.
“They've been out after curfew a lot,” Jerry added with his old humor.
Lana playfully punched him on the shoulder.
“I give up,” Lana said after realizing it could be anyone.
Mel looked up from the screen. “Would you believe it if I said this was Liam's grandma?”
“Marty?” Lana said with amusement. “And she's heading right for us at this very minute?” The blip on the screen was moving on the river.
“What are the odds?” Jerry asked.
“Impossible,” Lana replied.
Phil had joined in the welcoming hugs and handshakes but remained silent until just then. “There's lots of that going around. That woman has more lives than a cat, apparently, and has Heaven itself behind her.”
Lana wondered about that, especially after her vision or dream she'd had with Al. She was dying to ask Grandma Marty about how her husband was giving advice on a higher spiritual plane. It certainly felt like Heaven was behind her.
“Well, let's go get her,” Jerry suggested happily. “I've got a story to share.”
Lana laughed heartily. She finally had something to be happy about and a purpose which drove her. Finding her son and her grandmother-in-law were both amazing, as was the miracle of getting her husband back, but she couldn't help but wonder what Al would say of her change of plans. Surely, he'd agree that going to St. Louis to combat the government was less important than reuniting her family with Liam.
Al won't mind if I get Liam first, then go to St. Louis, will he?
They all climbed into the MRAP but Lana started to feel a sense of guilt for having her doubts about Al. She was already starting to wonder what she'd do if she had Jerry and Liam safe in her arms. What would it feel like to have a whole family again? She let that feeling soak in for a few seconds and immediately realized it would be next to impossible to willingly go back out into danger.
“Next stop, Marty Peters,” Mel said like she was the pilot of a plane.
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