In fact he had this image so firmly in his mind's eye it took him several moments to digest what was going on when he finally saw his grandma's house. There on the front porch was Grandma. She didn't have her cane or anything—just looked like she was dragging herself along the front facade near the front doors.
First she fiddled around with her own door and then slowly moved to Angie's door.
Liam was standing a couple houses away, on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the tree-lined avenue. Several cars were parked along the curb, making it difficult to get an unobstructed view from so far away. He began moving quickly—not quite a run yet as he wasn't sure what was happening—but, he was going to help if she needed it.
Grandma was standing at Angie's door, leaning her head against the wood. Was she trying to get in the wrong door? Liam had never known her to have even an ounce of dementia—but this certainly seemed like a start.
He was getting ready to call out to her when he saw Angie—or someone who looked like Angie— groping her way out from between the two houses. She had a rope or something trailing behind her and she began screaming maniacally when she rounded the corner and saw Grandma.
Then things happened so fast it forced him to stop in his tracks. Grandma looked over and saw Angie, and then she threw herself hard against that door. Somehow it opened for her and she seemed to tumble out of view. Angie was running full-bore at her but inertia took her wide of her target; the door slammed hard.
Liam stopped and pulled up behind one of the large trees.
OK. Something is seriously wrong.
He chanced a look at Angie. It was definitely her. She was slamming her fists on the heavy wooden door, making no attempt to use her own keys to get in, or use the door handle. Liam wondered what the hell was she doing in her bathrobe? He'd never seen her come down from her apartment looking less than fully dressed, with makeup to boot.
The tornado sirens made it difficult to hear distinct sounds, but he knew Angie was not throwing out words. She wasn't cussing or yelling insults, she was merely pumping out a guttural scream—it was horrible and inhuman.
In a flash she seemed to tone it down. Instead of beating the door she appeared to sniff the air and move sideways along the front of the house—back the way she came. The drapes were drawn over the windows though it looked like she was peering inside anyway. A few minutes took her back around the side of the house, and out of his view.
Liam was only armed with one beverage can, a laptop, and a cell phone. Thinking he would simply call Grandma to find out what had just happened, he was disappointed to discover the network was down again. He'd have to go in to find out.
He wasn't a weakling, despite being 15 years old, but he could honestly compare himself with the crazy nurse who had pursued his grandma and knew he could never subdue such an apoplectic person without hurting her. Up and down the street he could now see random people running, walking, or scrambling into cars—then speeding away. The President was describing this disaster, not one far away —and for once in his life he wished he'd paid attention to the news.
The librarian—she mentioned Ebola or something.
He took stock in his surroundings, trying to see things as they were. Gunshots had been a curious anomaly twenty minutes ago, but were now prolific within the blare of the sirens. It still wasn't clear what the threat was, but he knew he needed to hunker down. Like Grandma minutes before, he now had to figure out how to get into her house.
2
Liam was fairly confident he could outrun the nurse in a foot race, but he ruled out going right to the front door as Grandma did. Angie could be on the side of the house waiting to pounce, and he suspected both doors were now firmly locked. He wasn't sure why, but he felt an almost primal fear of Angie, based on her erratic behavior. She had some kind of sickness, that much was clear, and he wasn't going to get anywhere near her and risk getting infected. He needed to look at another way in that didn't involve Grandma opening those heavy doors again. He didn't want her running back into Angie either. Liam couldn't recall ever seeing her walking without her cane like that.
On the backside of her house there was a small cellar door which led to the lower level—Liam's living area. If he could reach the backyard, evade Angie, and have enough time to use his cellar key, he could get in and help Grandma do...whatever it is she's doing.
He had just stepped into the street when another car approached at high speed. He didn't know the make or model, but it was a modern-looking and sleek reddish sports car. It was also going much too fast for the small street, and made no effort to slow down as the driver spotted Liam. It veered dangerously close to him as he lingered between two parked cars. Without thinking he raised his middle finger at the driver. An act he was sure the driver had witnessed.
That’s for trying to kill me!
The car sped down the street, broke hard and turned crisply to the left at the first cross street.
Liam spent several long seconds checking both directions of the street to ensure no more cars were approaching. It was becoming deadly to spend any time at all out on the roads. He moved across and down the street, using the parked cars as cover to shield him from Angie. It was only a minute or so before he heard squealing tires again. Another car was coming from behind him.
No, the same car. It was the same red sports car making another pass down his street.
Liam panicked. He knew why the driver had come back.
He threw himself between two parked cars, though he figured he'd already been spotted. He had about ten seconds to formulate a plan. Hiding was his first choice so he moved off the road so he was shielded by one of the parked cars; he wanted some steel between himself and the potential enemy.
The rumbling vehicle approached and decelerated with the telltale sound of disc brakes grinding and tire rubber grabbing the asphalt.
“Where are you boy? I’ve got something to show you.”
The tone was very obviously malicious. Liam felt he had to know where the car had stopped so he would know if anyone was getting out.
He popped up slowly, and tried to look through the window of a parked car. He knew right away he’d made another mistake. It would have made more sense to look underneath the car. Too late. He was spotted. The car was directly on the other side. And the passenger-side door was opening.
Liam went instantly from squatting fright to explosive flight. He ran back up the street, behind the stalking red menace.
The passenger door slammed shut, and the car squealed as it backed up the street. There were at least two people inside, both cackling like hyenas.
“You can’t run boy!”
Gunshots followed. The passenger was shooting a handgun in his direction, sometimes hitting and breaking glass on nearby cars. Laughter followed each shot.
Liam was running as hard as he could, but far too slow to outrun a car. He was unwilling to run toward any houses lest he make himself an easy target out in the open. Instead, he got an idea to stop, let the car pass, and then cross the street in front of the sports car.
The move had the intended effect of surprising the driver and shooter. The car had to stop before it could move forward again. The angry driver popped the car into drive as it was still moving backward; the wheels were spinning forward even as the car was moving backward. Still, Liam had plenty of time to cross the street and then run in the other direction. This put the shooter on the wrong side, as long as he didn’t move to the back seat...
The car readjusted, moved forward again, and caught up to him in seconds. However the driver merely yelled obscenities at him and then accelerated away to continue down the street. The passenger continued to fire his gun randomly out his window. They’d evidently gotten bored of this game. A relief too as Liam had sprinted himself to exhaustion.
I could have been killed. On my own street!
He lay there for a few moments recovering his wits. Still on the ground, he peeked out from behind a parked car
to see if more vehicles were coming. All looked clear. He moved fast on the far side of the street, wary of seeing Angie, but she must have gone into the back again as she was not in the narrow corridor between the two flats. He ran with purpose further down the street.
His brain was in overdrive trying to process the many disparate pieces of his day. Internet shutting down was unfortunate, but probably not unheard of. Library shutting down in the early morning was definitely abnormal though. President giving a speech wasn't weird, or even interesting, but taken together with everything else his speech was clearly a piece of it. Finally his own street had gone bonkers with speeding cars, dangerous gunmen, and a nurse in a nightgown trying to claw at his grandma. And those damned sirens!
The tornado sirens were on a tall pole at the end of his block. He would have to walk practically underneath them to go around the corner and then back up the alleyway to the rear of Grandma's flat. He could cut between one of the many houses on his grandma's block and save himself the longer trip around them all, but he wasn't sure if other houses had their own hidden hazards. Now was not the time to anger a neighbor. He pulled up to one of the large trees, and took a look around. He had freaked himself out just thinking about the possibilities.
He could see into several of the houses on the other side of the street; there were people standing in their windows in several of them, looking out at him. They didn't appear to be sick or crazy like Angie, but he really couldn't say with certainty. It was creepy.
One of the houses definitely had a sick person. The front screen door was closed, but the inner door was open. Standing there was a diminutive woman, with a pale face, cropped hair, and a light blue t-shirt. She was sort of hovering in the doorway behind the thin screen. From his vantage point Liam couldn't hear her over the sirens, but she appeared to be howling or yelling or something of that nature. Had she seen him yet?
He had to take his chance and keep moving.
No sooner than he made himself visible again, the woman animated and began clawing and banging at the screen door. Liam was aware he had stopped again, but he couldn't look away. The woman viciously tore away the screen and managed to pummel her way through as the tiny latch tore off the door frame. In moments she cleared the debris and was walking quickly, directly at him, a small grassy yard and twenty-four feet of roadway separating them. Liam's brain was telling him to run, but he had detached himself from his own body and could only watch the end as it happened.
The woman, barefoot and with black stretch pants—had she just come from a Yoga class?—was entering the street. No cars were blowing through to run her over.
That would have been nice.
Her shirt was sweat-drenched and had several blotches of red. Her neck had a grievous injury, blood had exploded all over that side of her head and shoulders. And yet she was up and moving toward him.
She was well across the street when he finally reattached himself to his own body. He even managed to take a step sideways as if to begin running for real—
Then a shot rang out and the woman's chest exploded outward. Miraculously this didn't even slow her down.
I can see right through her!
The second shot ravaged one side of her head. She was dangerously close. Liam absently wondered how close the bullet came to him as it cleared the woman. Yoga lady walked a few more incredible paces, tripped on the near curb of the street, and slammed directly into one of the large Maple tree trunks. She formed a pile of flesh and bones at the base.
Liam could only stand there in awe. What was wrong with him? He completely locked up at the danger.
Then another shot rang out, slamming into the tree next to him. That finally woke him up.
He looked up and saw the shooter in a house across the street. Rather than shooting at him again, he was waving out his open window, making the sign for Liam to keep moving.
Are these things in every house?
He rose to wave his thanks to the good Samaritan, and then ran as fast as he ever had.
3
Liam finally reached the corner of the street. He crossed to the proper side, and then paused to look back in the direction he had come. He half expected to see a wave of crazy people pouring out of the houses he had just run by, but he was relieved to see nothing of the sort. If he didn't know anything was wrong, the block would look positively normal. Well except for the corpse of the Yoga girl visible if you knew where to look.
Turning now to the new street, his ears were throbbing from the volume of the emergency sirens above him. He walked with his hands over his ears to try to reduce the vibrations, until he realized he could pop his ear buds back in. That brought it down to a constant—though still overwhelming—hum in his ears.
He only had to go a short way down the street before he came to the alleyway. Like most streets in this part of town, the flats lined the main streets, and each block was cut lengthwise down the middle with a small, paved alley. This is where each house had a detached garage and homeowners parked their vehicles. Liam's plan was to go up the alley to a point behind Grandma's house and then see what he could see of Angie and then plan from there.
But before he could even step foot into the alleyway, he noticed Angie's car parked at an odd angle right in the middle of the street, a hundred or so feet beyond the alley. Knowing Angie's car might be necessary for any kind of escape, he opted to go check it out. It would also simplify the Angie problem. He thought it would be nice to just run her over and be done with it.
Wow. Seriously Liam? Murder?
As he walked toward the car he wondered to himself if it was murder? Did the gunman who saved his life murder that crazed woman? Was she a person? He had read so many zombie books he thought he knew the difference between a living, breathing person and the walking dead zombies—but did he just see one? Was that woman already dead when she attacked? Or just really sick? Either way, she meant to harm him. Killing her was self defense. But what of Angie? Was she sick or dead? It wasn't so simple in real life.
He knew something wasn't right about the car. It had been abandoned. It was parked diagonally in the middle of the street and both the front doors were wide open. He approached from the passenger side because it was closest. He wasn't the least surprised to see the seat on that side was covered with blood. Lots of blood. Something bloody was sitting in the space below the front seat, but he couldn't get himself to look at it directly.
That is not a foot.
He looked over to the driver's side; it was mercifully clear of any blood. However, he could see the door was wide open over there, and there were no keys in the ignition. He took a look around the block, but saw no clues as to what went down here. He backed away from the car, turned around, and slowly jogged back toward the alley and began making his way behind the houses.
Not a foot. Not a foot. Not a...
4
He imagined the discussion he'd have when he finally saw Grandma. Rather than their usual rehash of the weather, he'd be able to tell her about being shot by a speeding car, being assaulted by a Yoga student, almost getting run over by a speeding car, seeing something disgusting in Angie's disturbingly abandoned car, and he could even toss in the bit about the internet being shut down this morning and the librarian's freak out. Oh yeah, and he could share how he saw his 104-year-old grandma escaping the clutches of an insane nurse on the front porch of the house. “And how was your day Grandma?”
It only took the collapse of civilization to give us something interesting to talk about!
Soon he'd have that conversation with her. Right now he needed to focus on how to get past Angie. He didn't have any weapons, but he would need something. She didn't seem to be in the mood for talking.
Again Liam wondered if he could actually kill the nurse. As much as he detested the idea of being forcibly assigned to Grandma for the summer, he had to admit he liked the friendly nurse from upstairs. She had a knack for talking to Liam—she said she had a granddaughter about his age
so that gave them a common frame of teen reference. While they never sat down over coffee and chit-chatted, he didn't mind running into her at the house. That made it all the more difficult to contemplate doing harm to her.
Glad I don't have to put Grandma down.
That thought heaved his stomach and made him light-headed for a few seconds. He had to stop walking and lean against a nearby fence pole.
What the hell was THAT?
His mind and body were rebelling at the mere thought of doing harm to Grandma. At least he knew he wasn't a cold-hearted robot, but he wasn't sure what to make of these newly discovered feelings. Perhaps it was safe to say even though he never really knew what to say to her, he didn't dislike the old woman. She was comforting, in her way. After all, he'd known her his whole life...
Liam pushed those feelings aside for now, as he had more important matters at hand. He was coming up to the correct house. The sirens made it impossible for him to hear if Angie was rooting around out back, but for once he thanked the sirens for covering his own approach as he tried to sneak up and get a look into the backyard of Grandma's house. He couldn't see Angie, so he passed his own garage and went behind the next house, hoping to catch a glimpse of her from that angle.
Before he could get his bearings, he noticed a couple men at the far end of the alleyway come out of a garage carrying some stuff. A third man riding an ATV pulled out of the garage. It was also piled with stuff. None of them looked like they lived in this area. None of them appeared happy to see Liam. They dropped what they were carrying in their hands and swung rifles around. They weren't pointing them at him, but their message was clear—beat it!
He hastily entered the neighbor's yard, forgetting for a second they might not appreciate his intrusion. The men might come looking for him, but he doubted it. They looked like they were cleaning out garages, not looking for young boys to murder. Wow, the thought—and it's normalcy in this situation—blew Liam away.
This is not at all how I thought the world would end.
5
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Since the Sirens Page 4