Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3

by Isherwood, E. E.

  He discovered her worry was placed somewhere else entirely.

  “Liam, what we said back there, I don't know if it was real or some weird side effect of the plague or the end of the world or what. But—”

  “No, I get it. It did seem too good to be true. I understand—”

  “Let me finish!” She stomped her foot. “I was going to say that even if what happened to us was fake, my feelings for you are real. I know we are young and all, and that we are in the fight for our lives every day now, but I truly do love you. I've seen your love this whole time we've been together. The way you treat your grandma, the way you treat your parents, and the way you treat me. I've watched you reach out to God, which is also very important to me. Getting me that Bible back at the train bridge was where I realized you were someone I should consider. I've been praying about it every day since. I've realized that things are never going to be the same. Big weddings, the white picket fences and the apple pies—those are things of a past era. We're embarked on a new journey, in a new world, with new rules. I believe in my heart you are the person with whom I want to share this journey. My consideration was complete before we had that—whatever it was—back there. It just amplified that feeling is all. But I want you to know my true heart was already made up. That this is real.”

  Liam had never felt happier in his entire life.

  “I love you, too!”

  He then grabbed his makeshift handle, slung it over the wire, gave her a big smile, pushed himself over the bridge, and whooped it up as he slid over the horde and into the dark broken window of the hotel like he owned the place.

  Only after he was inside did he comprehend how dangerous it was and that he'd left his wonderful girlfriend out on the overpass without so much as a lick of instruction.

  “And the winner of boyfriend of the year is...”

  3

  Liam ran back to the third floor window and was relieved to see Victoria toss her handle over the wire. Like him, she sat on the bridge railing, held onto the crude handle made from the truck's gutted interior, then pushed off. In moments she was heading for him at a slow but steady pace.

  He looked down.

  What the—

  He didn't appreciate the size of the zombie horde while they were walking on the raised highway. From his new vantage point he could see the zombies took up every bit of space around the base of the circular hotel, and they packed every street leading up to the hotel. They were unnaturally quiet for such a large crowd of zombies.

  Victoria gave an exclamatory yell as she arrived. He wasn't able to tear himself away from the zombies to help her.

  “You could have at least helped catch me, though I'm glad someone put that mattress there,” she said as she came up behind him. She too saw the endless sea of the dead.

  “I'm glad I didn't look down.”

  “Why do you think they're so quiet? Are they all looking at us?”

  “They probably heard you whooping like a teenager at the amusement park,” she giggled.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Let's keep moving.” She tried to pull him away from the window. He resisted at first, but then relented.

  After he vacated the window, the distinct moans and yelling of the zombies went back up to level 11. He had an inspiration to pop back to the window to see if they fell silent again, but when he did so they just continued moaning. Some did look up at him and appeared to reach for him, but it seemed random. He thought he was seeing “normal” zombie behavior now, though he still couldn't identify what that might be.

  He followed Victoria out the hotel room door, and finally noticed the ripe stench in the confined space. It made the background nausea of the horde outside—and the Arch bird feast—seem almost pleasant.

  “Wow!” His quiet exclamation mimicked the look of shock on Victoria's face.

  They ran back into the room with the open window and went to work ripping up the bed sheets, trying to fashion makeshift masks they could use to fight the deathly fumes.

  Victoria came out of the bathroom with a little bottle of hotel shampoo. “We can rub this on the sheets we put on our face. Maybe it will hide the smell. Even a tiny bit can make a difference.”

  In a few minutes they were back out the door with their olfactory defenses bolstered. It did help, but didn't come close to completely hiding the smell. Liam's eyes wanted to water.

  All the rooms of the tower were on an outer ring on each floor. The interior of the hotel was hollow, with about fifty yards from one side to the other, giving the appearance of the inside of a smokestack. They were on a circular walkway ringing the entire floor. From the railing, they could peer down to the ground floor. Normally it would have been an enchanting garden. Many plants, shrubs, and small trees tastefully decorated the atrium. They were being trampled by hundreds of zombies milling about down there. Yet, the truly disturbing feature of the lobby was the large pile of bodies.

  “May God forgive us.” Victoria's voice was muffled by her scarf, but Liam concurred. Only humans could have created the huge pile of bodies.

  “Those are all elderly people—” Liam's voice cracked as he tried to voice the obvious. “Do you think?”

  “No. I'm absolutely sure Grandma isn't down there.”

  Liam searched his feelings. He, too, felt she was still alive, though he wasn't sure why he had such faith. Looking at the pile of people just like Grandma, he realized he felt anger more than anything else.

  “Let's keep moving.” He swung Moses off his back and showed Victoria that he was clicking the safety off. She did the same.

  Time to get serious.

  A few steps later they found the first zombie. The bath-robed woman had been shot in the head and lay sprawled on the otherwise cheery carpet. Looking ahead they saw many more zombies had been killed on the walkway.

  “Someone has been through here. Well-armed. But why don't we hear shooting anymore?”

  The shooting had been constant as they walked up to the hotel, but somewhere along the way it stopped. Liam laughed inwardly that gunshots were so common now he thought nothing of them.

  He observed the design of the hotel. Each level of suites was ringed on the inside by the large walkway with a metal railing. He put himself on the six o'clock position of the hotel. At three o'clock and nine o'clock he could see dim EXIT signs above doors, suggesting stairwells. At the twelve o'clock position, almost directly across the void, he could see a pair of clear shafts; they were for elevators. The elevator cars were nowhere to be seen. Looking up, he guessed they were at the top. Studying the other levels, he was dismayed to see dark figures lurking on several floors.

  “This doesn't make any sense. How could zombies get inside the hotel and up onto these levels? One closed door at the bottom and it would prevent them from reaching all these levels. Surely some of the stairwell doors would have been barricaded? Was the place abandoned and left totally open?”

  Victoria drank in the view as she responded, “I think someone had to have let them in. I can see doors down in the lobby, and all the glass looks broken. Even if that were an accident, I can see at least one of the stairwell doors down there, and it has a bar or something propping it open. It's that one over there.”

  She was pointing to three o'clock.

  “We should go over there, to the other stairwell. See if we can go up.” He was pointing to the nine o'clock stairwell.

  Victoria didn't argue. They quietly and deliberately moved that direction, staying as close to the inner wall as possible. Liam didn't want to chance being spotted by any of those dark shadows on other floors.

  A couple minutes was all it took to reach the large metal fire door at the stairwell. It hung wide open. In the low light it was hard to tell why. He gripped his rifle tightly. His finger wasn't on the trigger, but it smashed the side of it just above the trigger guard.

  When they reached the door they found the blockage: a body.

  It said “hello.”


  4

  “You kids shouldn't be here.”

  The bald man wore a nondescript black uniform. He had a rifle, though it was lying haphazardly next to him. He had gore covering his leg below his knee. A nearby female zombie clad in rhinestone-lined jeans and a bloody tank top—with a detached head—was possibly the culprit.

  The man followed Liam's gaze. “Yeah, that's the bitch that got me. They can chew faster than you can believe. She was searching for an artery so she could drain me. I was so mad I removed her head and threw it over the railing before I took my seat here to wait for the end...”

  Then, to himself, he said, “I was planning to take at least one more.”

  Victoria said “We heard shooting in here. Did you shoot all these zombies?” She motioned back over her shoulder the way they'd come.

  He didn't answer directly. “Is there a door open? How'd you get in? I thought we sealed all the doors on this level.”

  Liam searched for an answer that didn't involve the truth, but he couldn't think of anything. He was just about to respond with his best effort when Victoria spoke up.

  “Not sure about the doors. We came in through the window. Me and my boyfriend were driving on the highway until we found the bridge was out. We got out of our car and got chased. We were lucky to find a wire to this hotel and we had just enough time to slide down before we were eaten by the infected.”

  “And the guns?”

  Victoria was nonplussed. “Who doesn't have guns anymore?”

  It was true enough, but given where they were he felt he had to add some veracity to her story.

  “Cost us twelve chickens for the pair of them. We coulda used the chickens, but we're trying to get across to Illinois so we needed the artillery more.”

  “Well, you can look around at this place. I think you'd have had a better chance out in the open. This hotel is crawling with these bloodsuckers. I'm gonna be one soon, too. Not for long I hope.”

  As if in emphasis he coughed up a large wad of—something—and spit it on the floor next to him. Liam knew he was close to turning. He'd seen it before, notably when he saw the colonel from Elk Meadow change. McMurphy had the courage to kill himself when the time came. Would this man?

  Seeing the bloody mess he'd coughed up the man began cursing. Not at Liam or Victoria, but just in general.

  Liam felt it was worth risking an innocent question. “How did you get here? Did you come across that dangerous wire, too?”

  The man stared at the floor as he spoke. His words were slow and deliberate.

  “I started my day in a warm bed with a warm woman if you can believe that. Phone rings and it's mission time. Jump in a truck. Drive. Jump in a boat to cross a river. Then we have a brilliant plan to get into this place...” He faded out for a half a minute before returning “...shoot a wire across the gap. Then seal the doors. Always running from infected. Ha! I wasn't fast enough as you can see.”

  “Where were you going? Is there safety in this building?” Liam tried to paint a look of innocent hopefulness on his face, though the dim light may not have helped.

  The man seemed to be fading fast. “Only the Army's fortresses are safe. Never leave a fortress if you're lucky enough to get in one. They're the only thing that went right in this bag of dicks called Doomsday.”

  Liam had to risk a more direct question before the man left and the zombie arrived. He'd seen the transition happen many times, and was seldom the same from person to person. The bald man's head was now resting on his chest.

  “Sir, were you sent by Douglas Hayes?”

  At the mention of the name the man sprang to a semblance of awareness. He grabbed his rifle and pointed it—somewhat randomly—at Liam.

  “Tell me right now who you work for.”

  Liam froze. In moments the gun swayed dangerously. The man was on the edge and having trouble holding the weapon in the air with his waning strength.

  “Hayes has my grandma. We think he's going to kill her.”

  The gun dropped completely to the floor. Whether it was because of what he said, or just fatigue, Liam couldn't tell.

  “Son, look over the rails. They've been killing grandmas and grandpas up there by the pound. Your meemaw's dead. Get out of here.”

  Victoria spoke directly to Liam, as quietly as she could. “I'm sure she's fine.”

  The man coughed several times, loudly. Then, with his head on his chest, “Liam? Can't be many Liams out there. Liam Peters, by chance? Grandma is Martinnette Peters?” He ended with a wet cough.

  Liam hadn't recovered from having the man's rifle pointed at him, but now pointed his own gun, “What do you want with Martinnette Peters?”

  The man was trembling. He looked into the distance. “Sorry, sir. I almost killed them both. Yes sir. It's been an honor sir. I'm—” He heaved himself sideways into the doorway.

  Victoria pushed Liam into the doorway as well. They both fell to the hard cement floor on the far side of the man as an explosion erupted. Liam was stunned by the noise and concussion, but was otherwise unharmed. He got to his feet with ringing ears and his normal headache. He pulled Victoria off the ground and they moved out of the smoky stairwell while they recovered.

  “Are you OK?” Victoria shouted.

  Liam nodded in the affirmative.

  They both sat down on the floor nearby. It took a couple minutes before they could resume normal conversation.

  “You saved our lives. Thanks. How did you know he would explode?”

  Victoria talked at a higher volume than normal. “I saw it in a movie. I didn't want him to raise his gun at you again so I watched him like a hawk. When he rolled over I heard a click, and saw the grenade clear as day fall behind him. I guessed that his body would shield most of the explosion, so that's where I pushed you.”

  “I'm lucky I brought you along. I just stood there like an idiot.”

  “Well, you didn't bring me along for my girlishly good looks, did you?” Even behind her shampoo-laced scarf he could tell she was smiling.

  “Well, actually...”

  The humor belied the stark raving fear he felt at that moment.

  We almost died. Again.

  5

  “So, what do we do next? Go into the super-scary pitch-black stairwell?” He tried to be funny, which was the only antidote to the dread clawing at his insides.

  “The elevators haven't come down for us yet, so I guess we have to.”

  Liam inwardly smiled that she had a sense of humor. He didn't think he could have survived with someone who was a constant dark cloud.

  They got up and searched the man for any clues about who he was or what his mission might have been, but he had no ID and very little else on what was left of his body. He had a small flashlight latched to a black utility belt. Also attached was a holster with a handgun in it. Liam recognized it as a Glock. He tossed it in his backpack. The man wore a piece of steel on his chest—a bulletproof chest plate. Liam imagined wearing the chest plate, getting shot by the bad guys, but then jumping back up to kill them all after they thought he was dead. However, after pulling it off the man's ruined body, he felt the weight.

  “I wish I could have carried this bulletproof armor.” He held it up to his chest, struggling to keep it there. He never thought of himself as a weakling, but the dead man was larger than he appeared. The armor was oversized for a man of his girth.

  “Just do what I do,” said Victoria, “don't get shot.”

  “Now, wait just a minute,” Liam retorted. Of the two of them, she was the only one who had actually had a bullet land on her. Thankfully, it was blunted by the pocket Bible he had given to her many days ago.

  “You're so funny. I'd kiss you if I wasn't wearing protection from the stink around us, and we didn't have a headless zombie full of bullet holes and a dead man missing a large chunk of his body right by us. Kinda takes the mood away.”

  Liam turned to the dark doorway, flicked on his own battle-worn flashlight, and said a qua
si prayer. “Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear evil.” He didn't really know the words or how it ended, but Victoria did.

  “I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

  “Amen.”

  Victoria gripped the dead man's small light and together they headed up the steps.

  Almost immediately Liam said, “Are we there yet?”

  “Don't make me turn this stairwell around. I will, so help me!”

  “No seriously, are we there? How much longer?”

  “For the one-millionth time, I'll tell you when we get there!”

  They both giggled in the confined space, trying to push back against the darkness.

  At the next landing they checked the door. It was closed, which was a relief since no zombies could stumble in, but it was also welded shut with the word “Phoenix” stenciled on it with white paint

  The next level was also welded shut. Its door said “Chicago.” A few twice-deceased zombies were lying in the stairwell—all shot in the head. They were dressed in hospital scrubs, though it was unclear if they were the doctors or the patients.

  “Why do you think someone would seal these doors?”

  Liam could think of a few reasons. The most obvious was to keep out the zombies, but zombies were already in the building, on every floor if his earlier surveillance was correct.

  “I don't know,” was all he felt like committing to at that moment.

  At the fifteen floor they found the bodies of two US Marines. The area around them was scorched and blackened, as if an explosion ripped through there. The bodies were badly mangled, though Liam avoided studying them in any detail.

  “So now we have Marines, a guy dressed in black wearing body armor, and a hotel full of zombies. Was this a popular nightclub or something?”

  Liam responded, “This hotel is so new I don't know if it was even open before the sirens went off. Dad drove me by here a couple times and I saw it going up, but I don't have a clue why it's so popular now.”