No, she's stronger than you, Liam. You need her.
There it was. Did it mean he was growing up? Was it a sign of maturity to think being with a girl was more important than being with his mom? His mom had said something about being glad he and Victoria weren't together before the Zombie Apocalypse. It was a confusing statement when she said it, but with enough time to think about it, he accepted she was right. He'd disobey any order, curfew, or grounding to be with Victoria. Somehow that lessened his belief he was being mature about the whole thing, but the more he pictured her in his head, the more he was ready to go find her.
He admitted his reasoning was suspect, his schemes were clumsy, and his mom would not approve, but he was absolutely sure Victoria would be glad to see him walk through her dorm room again. Nothing could shake him from that vision, and that was all the green light he needed to continue with his journey toward her. Plus, it distracted from the sadness for his now-dead father, and probably-dead Grandma Marty. If Victoria died while he was off pretending he was part of a rebel army...it wouldn't be good.
He got up again and walked down the steps with grim fortitude. He only stopped once, to get out the little flashlight. He held that in his left hand, while he held a Glock pistol in his right. He kept the backpack and his AK-47 slung over his shoulders.
When he hit the ground floor—where he and his mom came in—he paused before opening the door. Such practice was common these days, so he didn't pat himself on the back for taking the basic precaution in the Zombie Apocalypse. But he was thankful of his caution because the lobby was half-filled by wandering zombies.
When they entered the building earlier, a good number of zombies followed—he didn't stop to count them—but he judged there were more of them inside the lobby than he'd seen on the streets around the building. Once again he was reminded of bloodhounds. Somehow the zombies he'd interacted with earlier in the day had found him. That was the only logical explanation. The infected always seemed to keep coming once they had victims in their sights.
He stepped away from the tiny glass window in the fire door. Pushing the door open and making a run for it was suicide. No amount of bravery or “girl crazy” energy was going to change that fact.
Do I go back up and pretend this never happened? I could be back by mom's side in twenty minutes. Play it off as a joke. Or, go down into the basement and look for a way out?
The calculus of his equation resulted in an answer of Victoria. The only way to solve all the variables was to keep going forward.
He snuck away from the door and flicked the light back on as he descended to the next level.
2
He'd forgotten something important about his arrival in the building. They came in through the glass on the ground floor lobby, but they took an escalator up one level. That's where they'd gone into the stairwell. From behind the window of the door, he looked out on the marble entryway and could just see the broken window next to the revolving door that opened up to the street outside. Pulling back, he could see the big letter G for ground floor on the wall next to the door. He'd been off by one.
There were zombies outside the door, but only a few. Compared to the floor above, it was a ghost town. Judging their position and speed, he visualized himself dodging them and exiting to the street.
“Don't open that door.”
A male voice from behind made him jump.
The small flashlight was enough to see the face in the darkness on the landing below. The stairs continued downward to who-knows-what. Fear and surprise had paralyzed him, so he was content to stand his ground and respond. He spoke just loud enough to be heard inside the empty stairwell, but, he hoped, not outside the door.
“You scared the crap out of me.”
“You can't let them in above. They already got in...below.”
Looking closer, the man had evidently crawled up the steps. The stairwell continued down on the left side of the landing, and the man's legs were hidden down the next flight. He had blood stains on his back.
“You've been bitten, haven't you?”
He laughed with a wet cough. “They're all dead, down there. I'm the only one on this side of the garage. Others might have gotten out through the main gate. And yeah, I'm done for.”
He scraped himself across the concrete and managed to prop himself up and sit against the wall. A smear followed him.
“Don't suppose you have a smoke?”
The man was middle-aged. He had scruff for a beard like he'd not been able to shave in ages. He wore a bright Hawaiian shirt, and in many ways looked very much like his dad.
Liam hopped down a couple of risers, then sat so he could talk in a quieter voice.
“I don't smoke. Are you with the people upstairs?”
He shook his head. “There are people up and down all these buildings. Tryin' to stay alive as best we can. My group was in the garage. We sent people out through the opening to scout for food and water. We also sent people up into this building, but it had been picked clean. Just ransacked offices.”
Liam wondered if the Polar Bears had done the ransacking. It made sense if the skyscraper was their base of operations for the city.
“Then we had one of our people—a young woman—come back from one of those snatch-and-grabs with a nasty scratch on her arm. Said it was done by one of them zombies, but she didn't get chomped. We fixed her up and thought nothing of it. Left her with her father.”
He knew where this was going. That morning he'd seen two of his fellow travelers get scratched and then...walk away. Like they'd been brainwashed.
“But she wasn't good to go. An hour later we found her attached to the neck of her dad...it was god-awful. But the worst part was what she did next.” His breathing was labored, but his voice was steady. “We naturally tried to pull her off—several of us—and she sprayed blood in our faces. One big exhale, and we were all infected. But it affected us in different ways. Some turned in minutes. Others, like me, are dragging it out. I had time to fight to protect my family...but in the end, it was—”
He choked up, planting a hand over his face.
In a whisper, he said, “Some of those things went berserk like I never seen before. Biting. Scratching. Spitting. It all happened so fast. A few dozen of us—all survivors of the worst of things the past few weeks. All fighters. The whole place was wiped out.”
“And you don't know if any got into the stairwells, or went upstairs?”
“No, it's just me. I had to—”
A big sniffle.
“—put down whoever I could.”
Well, thank you for that small favor.
He was concerned this would interfere with his desire to leave the building and find Victoria, but the man's answer told him otherwise.
“Will you do me a solid?”
“I'll do whatever I can.”
“Shoot me dead. I don't want to be one of them things. I don't want to kill anyone else.”
“But you haven't turned. Maybe you won't.”
“Everyone does, son. Everyone does.”
He thought of Grandma Marty.
Not everyone.
“I don't know...if I can.”
“Never killed anyone, huh?”
That was a loaded question. It all depended on whether the zombies were dead or alive, and whether he believed they could be restored to health with a cure. The honest answer was that he'd never put down anyone who wasn't a direct threat to himself or his friends and family. Putting a gun to the man's head in this stairwell would be something new.
But if he was infected, it was a matter of time before a decision had to be made.
3
Liam stared at the body. He'd haggled with the man, and finally, he loaned him his Glock. Now the back of the man's head was a messy stain on the concrete wall. The pistol had fallen to the guy's far side, giving him one more dilemma.
The gun had the man's blood on it.
Getting blood on him could be a death senten
ce.
Losing the gun to superstition could also be a death sentence.
The infection was everywhere, and nowhere. Getting bit was an immediate death sentence, but getting scratched also had some effect on people, though not everyone. He'd seen plenty of people fight hand-to-hand with zombies, and survive. He'd also been sprayed with blood, so that wasn't always the end, either. But the man had said there was something different down there. She spit blood at them. For some reason, that put fear in him that the blood on the gun was dangerous.
He took off his new shirt.
I need to travel with wet wipes!
Using a small pocketknife, he cut off one of his sleeves. It would provide enough material to clean the gun, but it would still allow him to wear the shirt. He wasn't fond of walking around in the hot sun without one. He'd done too much of that already. His shoulders were well-burnt.
The tan rag gave him what he needed to grab the gun and clean most of the mess from the grip. He was sure there were still microscopic traces of blood, but he hoped there wasn't enough to infect him.
With his shirt back on and the gun in his pocket, he ascended the stairs and went back to the ground floor window. He studied the outside for a couple of minutes until he'd convinced himself it was safe enough to make a run for it.
The door opened outward and was silent. His shoes were also quiet, but he couldn't stay out of the zombie's line of sight. The call went up from a few zombies on the ground floor lobby, which was echoed by a greater number of the infected up on the second level.
He avoided a couple of clumsy zombies near the broken glass window where he'd entered the building earlier that day, and ran into the bright light of the afternoon. Across the street, he could see the much larger hole where his mom drove the Tiger tank through the front lobby of that skyscraper. He feared there would be government agents—or even zombies—but the street was surprisingly empty.
The zombies followed him in the windows of the lobby, rather than exit through the broken glass. They were nice enough to box themselves in and give him a head start.
He took off at a jog.
Only six easy miles to Victoria.
Seemed simple, which was why he was on the lookout for anything that would cost him time.
The rhythm of the run soon captured him. He relaxed as he found his pace, and hit his stride running down the middle of the narrow urban street. His father, the marathoner in the family, had run these streets many times—and he'd been there to cheer. His current fears were the potholes and many open manhole covers, along with numerous corpses littering the route.
He breathed in and out, as evenly as possible. Nearly three weeks of poor diet and no sleep almost made him forget these basic things, but they came back soon enough. The pack and rifle made things a bit tougher, but it was a small price to pay for the ultimate protection on these streets.
Running by the glass frontage of a newer building allowed him to see himself in profile. Unless it was his imagination, he looked older, now. He appeared more competent in what he was doing. Running. Fighting. Thinking. He was sixteen, calling himself seventeen, and going on thirty. Dog years of the Zombie plague.
And what was behind those glass windows? As he ran by, he tried not to think about or look too closely in the windows. There had to be both survivors and zombies in most of the buildings around the city. His sincere hope was that all the buildings were locked, just like the one he'd exited. But, if zombies did run out, he was ready. His pace would keep him ahead of them.
He looked up. An irrational part of his mind pictured zombies falling from high up the canyon of skyscrapers, but there were none in the air.
“Just everyone stay inside, m'kay?” he said quietly, over his heavy breathing. The pack and rifle, and the uncomfortable way the Glock sat in his front pocket, had an effect on his endurance. He considered stopping for a quick break.
Four weeks of hard living and my base is gone...
At that moment a white drone buzzed by him from behind, about ten feet over his head. It drew his attention ahead, where he saw evidence of more zombies. A small park sat nestled along the street, between a large Greek-looking building and a row of parking structures. The drone made directly for that area and hovered and rotated among the zombies there.
He ran up to a newspaper kiosk—long since looted—and waited to see what was happening. Alternate routes formed in his head.
The drone was bigger than most drones he'd seen of late. It was about the size of a refrigerator, and looked like a small helicopter, rather than the style with fans on all four corners. It was very agile and seemed to work its way through the small crowd, avoiding the many trees with ease. After a few minutes, it raced off toward another block.
He took off at a run again. He stayed on the broad street but crossed to the far side so he wouldn't run by the infected souls inside the tiny park. They appeared to be lying on the grass and on the numerous benches surrounded by huge piles of garbage. He was too fast to get caught.
He was mostly right. The zombies didn't get up and run after him.
In fact, a couple of them waved.
4
Liam did a double take. The men—and a few women—were lying or squatting in piles of garbage stacked around the once-pleasant urban park. It was a long, thin park about one city block long with a crisscross of paved walkways and some glass-block sculptures that looked more like restroom walls than artwork. Old trees mingled with several telephone poles the length of the park. The dense canopy shaded the area.
He ran on for a few more yards but forced himself to stop. No real zombies were behind him, and whatever was happening here certainly warranted asking the question.
“What are you guys doing out in the open?” he shouted.
In response, several of the people shushed him, then waved him in. Seeing no immediate threats, he obliged. The closer he got, the worse the smell became. It appeared as if the group had scavenged through every dumpster in the city, and made sure to bring their prizes back to the park. Here he saw a huge mound of rolled up diapers. Next to it was a big pile of bones—from meat and fish, as best he could tell. Both piles were smothered by flies. Other stacks had bottles, cans, and newspapers, as if these people were conscientious about recycling. He tried to refrain from holding his nose, but when he got into...the trash fort, he had to pull his shirt over his nose to block the smell as best he could.
“Yeah, it grows on ya, lil' dude,” said a man of unknown age. He was filthy beyond words, with a beard down to his sternum. It, and his hair, and indeed all of him, was covered in blotches of ketchup, mustard, blood, and much worse. Only his voice gave a clue to his older age, as it was rich and deep.
“You live here?”
“Mmm hmm. Since s'start.”
The man's eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. Liam suspected the other people nearby were similarly affected. Perhaps there were toxins in the trash.
“How? Aren't the zombies here?” He was sure they were. He and his mom had driven the tank not two blocks over. There were plenty of zombies around, though he didn't see right then.
“Nah. Those sick dudes leave us...uh, alone.” The man pulled up his hand—which had been hidden—and put a hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth and took a deep drag, evidently satisfied. He puffed out the smoke, and Liam understood it wasn't quite a cigarette.
He searched his literature. There should be no reason these people survived this long if they'd been in the park since day one. The thought of zombies staying away from trash didn't add up. As time went on, they were becoming more and more filthy, too. Being out in the elements for three weeks, combined with never taking a second to clean oneself, would make anyone a mess. He'd been lucky he'd spent so many adventures in and along rivers, as that gave him the opportunity to “hose off” once in a while. Also, back in Victoria's room, they capitalized on some of her cleaning products.
The man was no longer looking at him and seemed to have no intention o
f speaking more.
“Hey! Sir?”
A slow turn. The man noticed him again. “Oh, yeah? I remember you. Got any papers?”
Liam looked around. It made no sense.
“No. I'm, uh, going to Forest Park. I saw you guys here and wondered why you haven't been...”
A couple of flies bounced to and fro on the man's beard. His eyes showed no hope that he would finish the thought.
“Well, you all should be dead,” he said with a tense laugh.
A couple of other trash people wandered over, including one woman—again, he couldn't give her an age beyond older than him and younger than Grandma—wearing a full-length sun dress with faded paisley swirls. It might have been pretty at one time, but now it was covered in the same filth as the man's clothes. Like she'd been collecting trash and rolling in what came out of each bag. But she also had something on her arm. A kind of big rubber band up near her shoulder. The lower part of her arm was purple. He was tempted to say something, but it was too creepy. Surely she had to know her arm wasn't right?
The man stroked his beard, which revealed a couple cigarette butts, a shiny blue pen cap, and a moving bug or two. He tried to focus on Liam. “We dead. Been dead for a lonnnng time.”
Liam took a step back, into a nearby pile of empty trash bags. He jumped when one of them yelped. A small mangy-looking chihuahua hopped out. It fared no better than its humans.
“Well, thanks for talking. I should get going.”
“Wait. Have you seen ma' husband?” asked the woman.
“No. Sorry.”
She cussed heavily, and angrily. The thrust of her complaint was that her husband took off with the drugs. Others nearby were similarly agitated by the story.
“Did you take his stuff?” she asked sadly.
“I don't know about that. Sorry. I have to go, really.” This time, he purposely stepped into the pile of trash, through the same gap he entered.
“Wait, kid,” said the bearded guy. He'd trailed Liam to the outer line of debris, and made like he didn't want the others to hear. After an impressive effort to steady himself, his eyes almost looked focused and normal. He expected to be let in on their survival secret.
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 6): Zombies Ever After Page 2