“I'm sorry for your grandpa.”
They all stood there for a few moments, no one really sure how to proceed. Melissa broke the stalemate.
“Do you guys have any intel on what's ahead on this road? Anything we should watch out for?”
It turned out they had spent a lot of time getting to know their road.
“Zombies are everywhere of course. We haven't seen any evidence of organized resistance or criminals. Everything is clear to the intersection of the highway a couple miles that way.”
Liam remembered that intersection. He was held at gunpoint by a drug abuser while he was riding his bike on his previous trip through there. It was a massive traffic jam of dead vehicles and dead drivers, centered around a cement truck which had plowed into them all, and surrounded by a ring of stripped and useless cars. It would have been very difficult to get a large vehicle through the mess. Bikes would be a snap, relatively speaking.
Liam found himself liking these country folk. He wanted to continue a relationship with them, even if they never came back through here. It would be good to know someone doing good work out here, in case they ever needed a place of last resort. He was saddened by his morbid realization he was already planning ahead for when the Boy Scout camp got wiped out.
Grandma would give me a pep talk right about now.
“Excuse me for a moment. I need to talk to my dad.”
Liam pulled his dad aside, and quietly asked, “Dad, I've read a lot of books about zombies and it struck me these people would be good allies. If we make it to the camp it would be nice to know we have friends down here. If we don't make it to the camp, we'll have some place to retreat.”
“Excellent thinking Son. Nice to see all those video games and silly books didn't take away your brain.” He smiled at Liam.
Despite the friendly tone, he tried to ignore the insinuation. That was the old Liam.
Jerry offered a proposal. “Our plans are to join up with the Boy Scouts up to the north of here. If we survive this trip and make it there, it would be great to tell them we have allies down here on their south side. In exchange, it would give you somewhere to go if you find yourselves in trouble. You're the only group we've found—besides ourselves—in this part of the county.”
The young man with the beard said he needed to run inside and talk to his mom. To Liam, it was funny the kids acted as liaisons between the parents. Between groups. Maybe this was the first step in an alliance that would last for a thousand years.
Feet on the ground, Liam.
It wasn't long and the bearded guy came trotting back.
“My mom agrees to your terms. She wants me to go with you to scope out the place and establish boundaries. No time to waste, she says.”
Liam looked to the house, wondering about the woman inside. She seemed really adept at this new reality. Some people did better than others “rolling with it.”
The bearded guy was “Bo” though he didn't say what it was short for, if anything. He carried an expensive semi automatic shotgun and had two pistols in a holster on each side of his waist. He was dressed completely in camouflage—hat, long pants and long shirt—despite the summer heat. It looked like he would disappear in any wooded environment.
He said goodbye to his relatives, though he didn't seem particularly put out. Like he expected to be back in no time. Liam hoped that was true.
He also ran behind his house and came back with a sleek-looking bicycle with skinny tires.
“This is my brother's bike, but he won't mind if I use it.”
“Hell I won't!” retorted the bush.
They were saying their goodbye's when Liam remembered he had one more question.
“What is the 'Church of Owens' that you wrote on the road?”
One of the other boys spoke up. “That was my aunt's idea—Bo's mom—she's a preacher. She said people will have more respect for religious figures in the End Times.”
Liam didn't say it out loud, but he was pretty certain she was exactly wrong on that point. He'd read books on the Tribulation, formally known as End Times in scripture, and religious people were in for a rough ride in that scenario.
But Liam didn't believe this was Biblical End Times. He was certain Grandma would have been taken if the Rapture was real.
No, this was much worse.
4
Bo pushed his bike next to Liam and Victoria, in the middle of the caravan. Liam wondered if the slim bicycle would be able to hold the large man. He had to be every bit of six-foot-four inches and 250 pounds. But he looked very fit.
They shared some small talk while they were still near Bo's house, but things quieted down as they got back out into the wilderness of the road. Almost immediately they heard Melissa grunting as she dispatched a zombie. A few moments later they had to swerve around the body.
Bo whispered, “Wow, she can really take care of herself.”
“You're telling us. She's a bundle of energy.”
Not long after, they crossed over the outgoing set of spray painted warning signs on their way out of Owens' territory. They approached the intersection Liam had feared. The group tightened up, and they laid the bikes in the nearby tall grass while they tried to observe what was ahead. In the moonlight, the intersection looked positively haunted.
Phil reached into his duffel, pulled out an apparatus, put it on his head, and flipped down what looked like binoculars over his eyes. He whispered “Night vision, courtesy of a Homeland Security grant to the department.” Then he spent about five minutes scanning the intersection in front of them.
“I see a few patches of smoke, but no movement of people or zombies. As best I can tell, we can cross to the other side. Wait!” He was now looking to their right, which was on the uphill side of the intersection. “I can see a loose group of people walking away, up the road. I can't tell if they're zombies, but it would be my guess.” He then looked in the other direction, slightly downhill. The highway was four lanes wide, but it had a median in the middle to separate the two directions. “It's hard to tell from so far away. There may be more people that way walking in this direction.”
Stay or go. The gamer's dilemma once again.
Like so many decisions of late, the fear of the unknown beat out the fear of the known. They knew one group had just passed. The second group might be heading this way. If it was daytime both groups would be on them. They decided to chance it.
They walked toward the intersection. Because he had been through here before, Liam explained how the only clear path through the debris and car jam was on their left side. He tried to detail how it wound along the near lane of the highway before crossing the median. On the far side the path came back to the intersection. The route was basically a large letter U. He'd had the advantage of much more light to pick his way across. Now they had to do it at night, with strangers lurking in the shadows.
The path was confusing to explain, but the only dangerous section was right at the beginning. The intersection itself was along a small ridge line, so the main roadway going north and south was elevated above the surrounding wooded landscape. Liam noted how vehicles trying to get through this choke point were forced to drive on the steep incline next to the highway for a hundred yards or so to the south, before there was enough free space up on the road itself. Even the shoulder was blocked. In the light of day it looked precarious. Now...
“We have to go to our left along that embankment. Then we'll see the opening up on the roadway where you can get back to level ground. It should be no problem on foot.”
He crossed his fingers.
Mel and Dad went ahead into the darkness along the incline. Bo followed with his bike. Liam and Victoria with their loaded contraption dropped in line next. Mom and Phil were behind; they worked together with the unwieldy wheelbarrow.
He had to push the bike upright from the lower side as he walked along the hillside. There were deep ruts in the grass from four-wheel drive trucks plowing through here recently.
He imagined Hayes and his Humvees had probably been on this same hill the day before. Victoria did her best to steady the bike it fitfully rolled along the uneven ground.
Liam thought of something Grandma had told him about the rhythm of life. She'd said life has a rhythm, and once you get used to it you can see things that don't belong or that aren't right. He got that feeling as they walked. A sort of deja vu mixed with a premonition, signaling a disruption.
He felt his heart beating in his chest as they stepped through the difficult terrain.
Beat.
He stumbles in some loose dirt.
Beat.
He tries to compensate as he grips the bike.
Beat.
Victoria is surprised and the handlebar starts to slip from her.
Beat.
The bike leans heavily in his direction.
Beat.
“I'm losing it!” she shouts.
He didn't want Victoria to tumble with the bike and trailer. It was going to happen no matter what she did. His only option was to spring out of the way so he wasn't hit by it. That's exactly what happened.
The overloaded bike tipped to the left. At first he thought the trailer might keep the bike from going all the way over, but it didn't. Instead, metal bent and broke. Liam jumped out of the way, Victoria lost her grip completely, and the whole contraption slid and bounced loudly down the hill. It was fifty or so feet to the bottom; enough space for all the cargo to explosively depart the rigging they'd made to hold it all together.
Everyone else watched helplessly as the bulk of their weapons disappeared into the darkness.
He should have been taking things seriously, especially knowing what was up on the roadway heading his way, but his thought at that moment was of something he'd wondered about on day one of the disaster. “Am I THAT GUY who does the stupid stuff and brings ruin to the group?”
He ran scenarios in his head. THAT GUY who gets bit by his girlfriend because he was too stupid to know she was infected. THAT GUY who stops the car to take a leak, only to be attacked at a delicate moment. THAT GUY who can't even manage a simple bicycle and dooms them all to battle zombies in the dark.
He hated the thought, but there was no denying he'd screwed up.
There was no time to decide who he was. He had to run.
“Get to the bottom!” Melissa tried to be quiet about it, but had to be loud enough for everyone to hear at once.
They all started down. There was no way to secure the wheelbarrow on the side of the hill, so Mom and Phil held it tightly as they moved down the incline, but it also got away from them. They had gone about half way so it wasn't such a disaster, but it still tipped the bag of rice and other gear onto the grass and then bounced loudly on a concrete drainage channel at the bottom.
All my fault.
Liam was the first one down to the edge of forest along the highway throughway. Liam found it hard to see what had become of his bike and the cargo. Melissa was down shortly thereafter.
“We can try being quiet down here, but it's probably too late for that. Have your weapons ready. There could be lots of them.” She saw Liam trying to gather random pieces of their gear, “Don't bother picking up yet. There's no time and we can't risk lights.”
Liam readied his weapon instead. Victoria did the same.
“I'm sorry Liam, I couldn't hold on.”
“Totally my bad. I tripped and couldn't find my balance.” He was more concerned about her rifle. “You said you know how to work an AR-15. Do you have any extra rounds with you?”
“No, I just have what's in the clip. Thirty rounds I think.”
He didn't think the cusp of battle was the right time to correct her terminology. “Me too. I didn't anticipate the need to carry more mags since we had a wheelbarrow full of ammo with us.”
Never take anything for granted. Never.
“There are 1000's of rounds of ammo within fifty feet of us, spread out after they tumbled down the hill,” she said with a wisp of regret.
All of them took positions at the bottom of the steep hill. Mel and Phil were on the left. Mom and Dad were on the right. The three young adults were in the middle.
In a couple minutes the first head popped over the edge of the highway above them. Looking for the sounds and tastes of fresh human meat.
She brought friends.
5
Liam carried four weapons. The least useful was his pocket knife. It would barely be classified as a weapon under most circumstances, but certainly not for this one. The next least useful weapon was probably his small .22 caliber Ruger Mark I. It had a nine-round mag, and Liam actually had a few extra rounds in his pockets, but it was difficult to aim in the dark, and there was no margin of error when shooting zombies in the face. Reloading in the dark while in close combat would be impossible. Next was the spear he kept lashed together with his rifle. The stout stick was useful for piercing the brains of zombies and could be reused many times. The primary downsides were you had to be strong to use to more than a few times, and it was ineffective against multiple close enemies. His most useful weapon was his AK-47 from his dad's stockpile. Practically a collector's item, the distinctive rifle found its way into Liam's house because it was so cheap to buy. His dad had ten of them. It could put a deadly round into the brain of a zombie from a reasonable distance, though in the dark its usefulness was reduced greatly. Still, of them all, the AK was his go-to first line of defense. With careful husbanding of ammo, he and Victoria alone could take down sixty zombies. The thought of needing more was enough to make his knees wobble.
The others had similar rifles or shotguns at the ready. Liam stuck his spear into the hard-packed soil of the weedy grass so he could grab it if he ran out of ammo. Victoria did the same next to Bo. They agreed whoever ran out of ammo first would use those backup weapons. Victoria also had one of Liam's Mark I's in her holster, but she only had nine rounds for it.
The filthy robed woman up top screamed and began her descent. Almost immediately she tripped on the same ruts responsible for Liam's accident moments earlier. It was almost comical as she fell forward and tumbled down the hill in a raggedy ball of arms and legs. She came to rest directly in front of Bo—right in the middle. Liam hadn't seen a zombie get disoriented, but this one had trouble getting back up. Rather than take the easy shot with his shotgun, Bo slung the gun over his shoulder, grabbed the spear at his side, and slammed it home. The woman was hard to see in the low light, but the gruesome sounds of the spear plus the pangs of death were horrible. Liam braced for things to get worse.
More came over the top. Almost all of them arrived from their left. A few were walking along the embankment from that direction, though most were coming straight over the top as if they were in the jumble of cars to begin with.
About half the zombies met the rut and tumbled down the hill. Most were out of control as they seemed to lack any sense of balance once they went from flat to hillside. In moments there a dozen falling down the hill.
Then it got loud. Liam had been around firearms his whole life, but always with the approved safety goggles and ear protection. These days people did away with such frivolities. It was just explosion after explosion from the barrels of their guns. He almost longed for OSHA to come write them a ticket for having an unsafe work environment.
Most dropped to a knee to steady their aim. Hitting things in the dark was already difficult. Hitting tumbling things in the dark, while aiming for their heads, was a whole new level of crazy.
Those who rolled down were comparatively easy to dispatch. Once they reached the bottom, they were exposed on the ground while they tried to recover. The moonlight was enough to find their heads. The real problem were the random zombies who stayed on their feet as they sped down the hill—not quite a run, more of an ungainly bounding. They closed the distance with the shooters dangerously fast.
The first person to go down was Jerry. He was hit at full speed by a lanky man and together they fell over into
the wooded fringe behind them all. Lana was experienced pulling zombies off her husband, but her action took them both off the firing line while they contested the outcome. It left a lot of territory for Liam to cover.
He was already on his knee and lined up his shots as carefully as he could, but he still missed a lot. Even when a zombie was hit in the head, its momentum kept it going down the hill—adding to the chaos.
In less than a minute, Liam's rifle was out of ammo.
How did I go through thirty rounds that fast?
He threw it down and pulled out his Mark I. It gave him nine more shots before things would get personal with the spear.
Meanwhile, Phil and Mel dealt with the same problems. They had to take a few steps backward so they had some level ground in front of them where the descending ghouls could come to rest so they could be dispatched. They were much more disciplined than Liam and Victoria, so the hammers of their guns kept things even on that side.
In the middle, Bo, Liam, and Victoria took a step or two back from the hill to make room for the stack of undead developing there. Bo was still using the spear. Despite his heft, he darted among the injured or disoriented zombies lying at their feet and put them out of their misery. He dodged and ducked between Victoria and Liam with athletic grace as they all sought targets.
“I'm out!” Victoria threw down her rifle, just as Liam had done. She went right for her spear, rather than her pistol. She tried to help Bo.
Liam couldn't get a read in the chaos around him. To his left he heard his parents yelling and screaming as they rolled around in weeds. To his right, he only heard the regimented banging sounds of the expert shooters. The middle?
We're screwed.
More zombies came over the top.
“We need a new plan!” Liam yelled it, but didn't know to whom it was directed.
His mom answered.
“We have to pull back. Jerry's injured.”
Jerry was howling in pain, but managed to shout over all the noise, “No! We can't leave the supplies!”
Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3 Page 4