While he deliberated, the volume of gunfire increased from the area near the administration building. The plan was to draw the enemy fighters in that direction—
Something tore through his tent; it whirred as it went by. Suddenly his position behind the enemy became a liability.
This is why I don't devise military strategy.
5
The night should have given way to the light of dawn, but when a few drops hit the tent he understood the delay. A flash of lightning lit up the inside of his hideout. The immediate burst of thunder made the gunshots sound quiet by comparison. The sound rumbled up the valley.
He had to give them credit, they couldn't have picked a better time to attack.
Almost like they knew.
He was on his stomach to minimize the risk of any stray bullets heading his way. He thought of his next move as the pitter patter of rain slowly increased. How long had he been out here? The battle seemed to reach a crescendo near the administration building.
Lightning. Thunder. Gunfire. Death.
The cycle repeated many times over the next few minutes as the rain increased to a torrent. He was loathe to go out in the dark rain, but knew staying in the tent wouldn't serve anyone. Thinking of Grandma he said a short prayer for protection, and slowly made his way to the front flap. He could see nothing beyond the next tent. Even flashes of lightning seemed to be subdued by the darkness of the heavy rain and dense cloud cover.
The gunfire, and the screaming, finally got him moving.
His plan was to swing wide of the battle and move down the valley. That would ensure he wasn't in the main line of fire behind the survivalists, and give him the best chance of linking up with someone on his own side.
He ran like hell. Instantly soaked, he held his rifle down, hoping to avoid getting water in the barrel, though he wasn't sure if that really mattered. He passed no one, though at times he thought he heard crying in tents as he ran by.
Music and lyrics from a childhood movie popped in his head.
Just keep running!
In ten minutes he had looped around the entire epicenter of the battle, and went back up the creek bed running down the middle of the valley. He stopped when he guessed he was about 100 yards south of the administration building. He could see the flashes of gunfire everywhere up there.
As scheduled, the MRAP rolled up the tiny road toward the building. Liam braced for what it was about to do—end the battle. He cautiously made his way a few yards up the creek to see if he could find a better vantage point. He noted, but ignored, several campers hiding their families around him. He had to see how this ended.
Lightning. Thunder. Buzzzzzz. Buzzzzzzz. It looked like dragon's breath, and it was pointed at the administration building.
The MRAP sank its teeth into the building for several short bursts; the enemy was getting a taste of their own medicine.
“That's for Bo, you duck mounting bastards!”
No one could hear him over the rain, thunder, and constant gunfire.
The intensity of gunfire flared as the MRAP poured thousands of rounds into the infrastructure of the building.
Then it died down considerably.
Within moments it stopped completely.
The MRAP advanced into the grassy field next to the road. It paid no heed to the tents it crushed.
He slung his rifle and climbed up the soggy incline of the creek—he gripped small tree trunks to steady himself in the mud—and ran across the ten or fifteen yards of ruined tents to get behind the MRAP. It would be the epicenter of the surrender.
When it stopped, Liam ran up and banged hard on the back with the butt of his pistol. He took a few steps back so Phil could see him on the remote camera or out a rear window if he was up.
One of the rear doors began to open. He still held his pistol, but it was pointed down; an afterthought. His rifle was on his back, forgotten. The door opened fully.
Intense gunfire flared at point blank range, both in front of him and behind him. The person who opened the door was thrown back into the compartment. Liam threw himself to the ground and tried to claw his way under the truck for cover. Gunfire continued, though the MRAP moved ahead and began to turn to the right—directly for the nearby creek.
More gunfire from behind him on the hill. Directed at the MRAP.
How did the enemy get up on the hill?
While low in the wet grass, and among the tents smashed down by the truck tires, he watched in horror as the MRAP drove over the lip of the creek bank, and disappeared.
He was too terrified to move.
Gunfire ceased once again.
He lay in the grass for another fifteen minutes.
The storm ebbed. It became a light drizzle.
It was lighter now. Liam spied the area. The administration building was chewed up. All the windows were broken out. Smoke poured out from points inside.
He feared the increasing light would give him away, but he was petrified. He admitted he couldn't force his muscles to move due to fright. If the MRAP was destroyed and his friends were in it, then who was shooting from up on the hill behind him? Would they shoot him in the back if he ran to the creek?
Finally, after an eternity, he heard a voice from far away.
“Give Liam Peters to us and we'll let everyone else walk out of there.”
He heard the director of the movie yell “That's a wrap!”
6
Minutes went by. He still couldn't move himself from his position in the tall grass. As the daylight increased he could tell he was exposed, but not by as much as he feared. No one was mowing grass these days and it was particularly tall where he had fallen. There were also the many downed tents in the area.
He sensed a couple people walking nearby. He chanced a slight turn of his head to see what they were doing, and was rewarded with a good clear look at two people from the camp waving a white sheet of some kind. One of them was Lee. The other he didn't recognize. They walked toward the administration building.
He was unable to turn his head to see where they went, but he heard them perfectly.
“That's far enough,” said one of the survival guys. “We're sending someone over.”
In moments a pair of voices were close to Lee and his partner.
“Hello. I'm...Red. Y'all fought bravely, but it's over. You've lost. We can either kill everyone right here, right now, or you can turn over Liam and a few others, and walk out of here alive. It makes no difference to me, although it would be nice to save the ammo if you'd just hand him over.”
“Liam is a member of this camp. What has he done that would warrant this type of assault on innocent women and children?”
He heard soggy footsteps move closer. He could imagine the two parties closing together to discuss terms. When they resumed speaking, it was in a much quieter tone.
“Listen, friend, I don't have to tell you Jack. We have enough men to sack this entire valley, but we only get paid if we take Liam off your hands. That's what we intend to do. Having the rest of you dead or alive is a non factor here.”
“We'll give him to you.”
“Charles, what the hell?” Lee asked. Hushed voices continued.
“We can't risk the whole valley for one kid. If they want him they can have him.”
“Smart man, maybe we'll deal with you, huh?”
“No, we can't give him up just like that. For all we know they're going to kill the boy for no reason if we give him up.”
“We just need to capture him. Bring him back alive. We'll be super gentle with him.”
Lee knew some of his travails with Hayes, but not all of them. Still, Liam was pleased to hear him defend him.
“Why Liam? He seems like a pretty solid kid. Not someone who would warrant such an attack. He do something bad?”
There was a long delay. “What the hell, it doesn't matter to me. The kid blew up a research facility that was close to unraveling the mystery of this plague, and then killed a
bunch of old folks for sport. If we bring him in, we get two MRAPs in the deal, though I would have really liked to have the third one you guys shot up and sent over the edge of the creek.”
“That was our MRAP.”
The man laughed out loud at that. “Ha! You let our specialists walk right into your camp and steal it from under you. You don't deserve it.”
“I guess you don't either, seeing as you drove it off the ledge.”
There was no talking for a long period of time. Liam could imagine them staring each other down. The survivalist finally broke the silence.
“You have thirty minutes. Give us Liam or we burn your people alive inside that building. We'll be watching from the creek. We'll shoot anyone who leaves the building, so you might want to let 'em know.”
It wasn't the survivalists inside the administration building. It was his people. The campers from the valley. Were his parents still in there?
It almost made him raise his head to look. But something told him to keep still. Play dead.
He was so confused, and staring at the grass didn't help.
He was prone for several moments before he heard a low voice.
“Liam, don't you dare move.”
Lee.
A long silence followed.
Chapter 9: Migrations
Liam couldn't tell what was going on around him as he lay in the tall grass near the site of the recent battle. He didn't know who was in charge, who had been killed, or whether he was going to be turned over to the enemy. The drizzle had become a mist and the night had given way to morning.
He nearly fell asleep in the wet grass as the adrenaline of the battle was subsumed by the exhaustion which never seemed to go away. But he jolted awake when he heard a commotion from up on the hill behind him. It started with gun shots.
More survivalists? He wondered if they surrounded the whole camp now.
Someone screamed, “Infected!”
He heard the familiar sounds of loading weapons, checking ammo, and racking slides. Those around him were redoubling their efforts at preparing for war.
A deep voice shouted from up the hill, “Marines inbound!” In moments, footfalls through the wet leaves approached.
The survivalist negotiator was still somewhere close by. “This better not be a trick.” Then, louder, “My guys, hold your ground.”
Liam heard men, women, and children running. Muffled chatter was all around. Impossible to tell who were friends and who were enemies without looking up. He really wanted to look.
A Marine spoke between great gulps of air.
“Unbelievable. Look at all these children,” he sounded frustrated as he said children. “I don't know what you all have got going on here, but trust me when I tell you your only hope is to stop the horde of zombies behind us. They wiped out our unit and are coming over the hill behind us. They're relentless in their pursuit.”
“They wiped out your MRAPs? How's that possible?”
The Marine seemed to hesitate before responding. “Well, I don't know about the main column but our detached team was keeping an eye on the highway over this hill. The zombies massed up along the roadway like they were returning to the city. They stumbled on our position and we've been running ever since.”
They were spying on us too, no doubt.
Liam didn't blame them. It made perfect military sense.
Men, women, and children started running back across the valley—sloshing like so much bathwater in the basin—now going in the opposite direction they'd fled this morning.
Liam heard his signal.
“Liam. Start crawling back toward us. Stay low.” It was Lee.
He used his arms to push himself backward in the wet grass. He had no way of knowing how far he had to go, but it couldn't be further than fifty or sixty feet until he reached the small road. He knew there was a shallow ditch for drainage on each side. He could use that to make better time away from the admin building.
All the people who cleared out for the survivalists were running off the hill behind him, across the field, and into the creek and beyond. A couple kids tripped over him while on the run. Parents picked them up and dragged them away without a second look at him.
Gunfire increased on the hillside.
Do I keep going backward?
“Liam. We're out of time. You need to run for it!”
He stood up. Lee ran toward him. Zombies were messily draining out of the woods, even as shouts and shots continued to ring out from up on the hillside. Many people were almost certainly surrounded by the thousands of zombies in his field of view.
His feet refused to run. It was a flashback to his first zombie on the first day—yoga girl—and his inability to do more than watch his death approaching. Only Lee's firm grasp of his arm brought him back into the moment and got him on the move.
A handful of Marines were nearby. They had knocked over a couple picnic tables, tipped them on their sides to form a V-shaped wedge—the pointy part faced the arriving zombies. The open part was just enough room for the three survivors to protect two additional wounded Marines lying high up in the V, both with combat shotguns on their legs. Liam thought it was both brave and impossible. He immediately felt compelled to go help them, but Mr. Lee's grip was insistent—as if he knew Liam's thoughts.
In seconds they stumbled down into the creek bed, and turned south to run away from the administration building and the survivalists still holed up somewhere nearby.
“We have to make a run for it until we meet some more shooters. We can't hold them off with so few of us left, but maybe the duck guys can take it in the face.” He laughed sarcastically as they splashed down the shallow creek.
Liam looked back at the building. A few campers with rifles were at the ready in the shattered and broken second floor windows, anticipating the wave of death heading for them. He saw a few survivalists, mostly in the creek bed. Some were backing away. Some were sticking it out.
Everyone wore a mask of fear.
With one last peek at the zombies, he understood.
They're endless.
2
Marty went for another test. The windows on the penthouse level of the hotel faced the main part of St. Louis, not toward the Arch. In the daytime she recognized lots of landmarks, especially the stadium where the St. Louis Cardinals played baseball. If she could ever figure out Liam's phone, she could lead him right to her. She felt it in her right hip pocket as she walked down the hall, reassuring herself she still had it.
The “nurse” wore a bio-hazard suit. Because she was so short, Marty couldn't even look into the face of her captor. The person moved like a woman, but she admitted she was guessing. Most of the nurses she'd ever met were women, so it seemed reasonable.
As expected, they guided her to a plush seat, and helped her sit down. The cushion sank so far down she didn't know if she could get out on her own. She laughed at the notion it was intentional to keep her from running away.
Soon they wheeled in a gurney with another elderly person up top.
No one had talked to her since she arrived. At first she was thankful for the privacy, since she spent time trying to manipulate Liam's phone, but eventually she tired of that and just wanted someone to talk to. She tried to engage with the nurse helping her, but they were adamant about not saying anything.
It left her with nothing but the screams of other patients.
Each time she was brought here the elderly victim was carted in, and many minutes later the screams would start. First it was intermittent, but eventually the screams would become so intense she would watch the door for fear something horrible would spill out. Angie had made those same horrible sounds back at the beginning.
Liam mentioned they deliberately infected test subjects back at Elk Meadow, though part of her wondered if it was really possible. It sounded like something a conspiracy nut would say. She didn't think Liam was a conspiracy nut. But intentional infections? She'd seen dozens of people go in, someti
mes two or three at a time. They couldn't all be dead.
As expected, the screams began on today's subject.
It was dangerous, but she decided to pull out Liam's phone. They never came for her until the screaming was long over with. This would be a prime time to see if she could finally get a connection to Liam.
The screen of the phone showed her a picture of Liam's face giving her a “shush” symbol over his mouth. She knew that was the last picture he took of himself before he slipped his phone into her pocket when they parted last. She knew how to “open” the phone because it said “slide open” right on the cover. What she didn't know was how to contact Liam. When he gave the phone to her, he probably didn't realize she could no longer call him because she had his phone! He didn't leave a number, and she hadn't had to memorize a phone number in decades.
Through trial and error she poked and thumbed her way into the address book for the phone. Who would be the most logical person to call now, she wondered? Probably her grand-daughter-in-law; Liam's mom. Her number was in the system, but when she tapped the digits it always said the phone was unable to connect to the network. No real surprise given the state of things. She tried it a few more times as she ignored the screams.
To her surprise, it rang.
3
Liam kept running.
Plagued with exhaustion, he stumbled and landed face down on the smooth rocks lining the creek bed, even before he knew it was happening.
Lee picked him up and practically tossed him further down the creek—away from the zombie hordes spilling over the bank behind them.
“Run, Liam!”
He almost missed the scream from Lee over all the other campers yelling and cursing at their own stragglers, as well as the constant chatter of gunfire. Without ear protection the sound of guns was painful. But it was the only sound keeping him alive.
“Come on, we aren't going to die in this creek!”
Lee pulled him through the shallow water. Here and there a zombie crashed over the edge of the creek to their right. Sometimes Lee would put it down with his rifle. Other times another camper would do the necessary task. Liam still had a hard time making his feet move.
Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3 Page 15