Her mind was aflutter. Unfiltered joy rode with abject fear. The mixture was intoxicating.
She drove for several minutes. A flash of disappointment as she turned the car around.
“I must get back. Things to do. I've had my fun. I wish Al could be proud of me.”
Her feelings fluctuated between desire and regret now. Telling her husband she had taken a joy ride would be a minor scandal. Better to just park it and ignore it happened at all. She felt sorry for feeling that way, but sometimes a white lie helped keep the peace in marriage. She at least believed what she thought.
Hair blowing, she spun the iron horse back into the alley, slowing slightly, heading for the wooden corral behind her home.
“I can turn into the garage at this speed. I know I can. I'm doing great.”
She made the turn quickly and deftly, ecstatic she could do it, and then slammed on the brake. She felt a bump as the car decelerated, but she knew she didn't hit the front wall because she still had a couple feet to spare.
“That would be a disaster.”
“Mercy. What a ride that was.”
Car off. Door open. Step down.
And she saw it. The shoe.
Confusion.
“Impossible. It can't be.”
Slowly, Grandma moved to the front of the car. What young Marty saw was so emotionally powerful she still couldn't see it now. Grandma had completely blocked it.
It was her first baby. Barely 18 months. A girl. Martinette had left her sound asleep in her crib in the backyard when she snuck off for her joy ride. When it happened for real, she had run away screaming. She stole one quick glance at her daughter lying on the cold concrete. Al came and took baby Victoria away, leaving her with nothing but an empty hole in her soul.
Her emotions became a storm of pain and depression.
A voice in her head said, “Marty, you must look.”
“Al, Victoria is dead. I killed her. I killed my little girl.”
“I know, my love. I beg you. Please look at her.”
The grief of nearly ninety years spilled out, and Marty was racked with sobs.
“I just can't, Al. Please don't make me.”
She felt Al's hand on her shoulder. Far away and yet so immediate in this dream. “I trust you to do this. You are my fighter. Always were.”
Young Martinette opened her eyes. She used her hand on the side of the car to pull herself toward the front. Toward what she knew was a tiny ruined body.
Her hands were soaked from perspiration. Her heart was overtaxed from anxiety. She pushed on, rounding the front bumper.
She looked.
On the floor, there was no evidence of her baby. Instead, she saw Liam's phone.
She fainted, but did not wake up.
5
“Hayes. Why? Why now?”
“Liam, listen to me. They were going to take her away. This was my last chance to test my theory. I think your Grandma can survive it. I need to see it happen.”
Liam didn't know what he should be feeling. He felt like he did when he first escaped from Angie, nearly two weeks ago. When he evaded her and reached his home, he sat down and felt empty. He felt nothing. This moment was a mirror of that one. He felt absolutely nothing at all.
Grandma was dead. It was all for nothing. He was—
Victoria chirped. The whole room looked at her.
A second chirp.
She steadied Liam so he could stand on his own, then with a slightly red face she pulled her phone out of her bra. When he saw it, he recalled she pulled it one other time. It was within the first few minutes they'd been together back when they'd met at the Arch. She hadn't used it or mentioned it since then.
“I usually keep it off. I've been trying to save the power and only check it once a day to see if my parents tried to contact me. I must have left it on.”
She looked at the face of the phone first with shock, then sadness.
“This has to be some kind of joke. Look at this.” She handed the phone to Liam.
Reading from the text log, Liam said, “Need to kill the power to building. Stop the sirens.” He looked up with confusion, “It says it's from my phone.”
“Well, where's your phone,” Victoria asked. “I thought you gave it to Grandma.”
“I did. Someone must have taken it from her.”
Duchesne seemed only half-interested. His tall associate pressed his ear bud, then whispered something to his boss.
“OK, we're ready to go. I like your friend's thinking. We were going to blow the stairwell doors for this building so you'd be trapped in here, but we'll go ahead and place a charge on the power generator on our way out. Yeah, that's a great idea actually. That ought to make things interesting for the whole city, eh?”
“No! If you cut the power all the doors will...unlock.”
“And how is that my problem?”
Hayes looked at everyone before making the realization. “You're leaving us all here, aren't you?”
“Smart man! I don't think we'll be needing your services anymore. I'd just as soon kill you all where you stand, but I think it's fitting you die at the hands of your own menagerie, don't you? Once we blow all the doors, and the power, this place will be zombie headquarters for St. Louis. With a little luck the old people you tossed to the ground will come back up and have words for you.”
Duchesne whistled and the woman came in with her weapon drawn. She stood by the other bodyguard, their message clear: “Stay back.”
“I assume we're all adults here. You know enough not to try anything tricky with my two friends pointing rifles at you all and zombie grandma. No one needs to get hurt. Now, back against the window if you don't mind.”
Liam was leafing through every book he'd ever read, looking for the answer to this riddle. How to stop a madman from taking his grandma away from him forever. He didn't think he could take the agent in a fight, nor did he consider even for the briefest second he could eliminate the two guards pointing harm in his direction. Unlike his books, there was no opportunity for him to be the hero.
“Nice and easy, everyone.”
The big bodyguard slung his rifle, then picked up the frail form of Grandma from the bed. He was surprisingly gentle, and due to his size she appeared as if she was a small child over his shoulder. He carried her out of the room, making for the stairwell.
Duchesne walked out next, followed by the woman. She slowly walked backward, keeping them in check. Liam wondered how often it happened to her that her prisoners sprung for her with their bare hands. When she was at the threshold of the door she pulled it shut. Just before it closed completely she said, “If we see you come out before we're in the stairs...” She didn't finish it but she raised her rifle in Liam's direction.
When the door clicked shut, Liam flung himself at Hayes. He was partially deflected by Jane, but he made contact with the man's jaw. Liam winced as his knuckles felt broken. Hayes reacted in an instant, twisting himself and Liam to the ground. The battle was over in moments.
“Liam, you have to listen to me. We can still save Grandma. I didn't inject her with zombie blood.”
He had him in a headlock so Liam couldn't respond except with gasps of air. After many seconds, he stopped struggling and gave a thumbs up sign. At that, Hayes relented enough so he could talk. He didn't know what to say. He was used to hating Hayes. The new Hayes was confusing him.
“This may be the first time you don't have a witty retort for me.”
With a groan, Liam could only say, “Yeah, this may be the first time since we met that I sort of like you. It feels weird. Especially since I just punched you.”
They both got up and dusted themselves. The two women also stepped apart, though they hadn't been fighting.
Liam tried to be nonchalant about the whole affair. “So, about that rescue...”
Chapter 14: Since The Sirens
Jane was Hayes' assistant, or friend, or girlfriend. Liam couldn't figure it out, and did
n't ask. She was at the big window of the main room in the suite, scanning the wreckage below the Arch. “I've found them. They're leaving the railroad tunnel.”
Liam and Victoria jumped off the couch so they could see. Jane was trying to locate Grandma and her three captors.
“You found her?” Liam asked.
Duchesne said they had boats.
“You might be able to see her. South leg, heading south on the tracks.”
Jane gave him the binos and pointed to the bomb-cratered landscape that was once the lush grounds under the Arch. The dead bodies, downed trees, ruined walkways, and the massive flocks of scavenger birds had turned the parkland into an ugly slice of hell. The Mississippi River was the same ribbon of muddy and ugly it had always been, but now it deposited the world's litter into the large pile of wreckage entangled in the piers of the Poplar Street Bridge.
It took a few seconds to orient on the position and adjust the binoculars, but he saw her. A tiny figure carried by a giant and followed by two normal sized people. He was at such a height he could see them, but so far away he couldn't make out much detail. He dropped the binoculars and looked closer to the hotel. The zombies below the building were a throbbing froth of death.
“How did they get by all of the zombies?” He no longer cared about using that word. He had to know how to catch up with Grandma.
Hayes knew. “I'm sure they took the pedestrian tunnel. It goes from the parking garage into the Arch museum. It's all underground.”
Hayes had returned their weapons and ammo, and even shared a little food.
“Liam, there's something else in this building. Something you should know if you're going to go out there to get her.”
Liam wolfed down a grain bar as he listened.
“This building is designed as a crude prison for the zombie samples we've been bringing in for months from around the world. But it also became the focal point for other pieces of research. One of the key discoveries the long-gone research team made was in brainwave manipulation. The brains of the infected retain a very narrow band of electrical activity—usually core functions such as muscle control, motor functions, and the most rudimentary cognitive functions related to...we assume...sating hunger. They don't run on evil spirits, like the movies.” He guffawed, trying to be funny, but he had an unreceptive audience.
“Anyway, we were able to modify all 200-something tornado sirens in the St. Louis area with special equipment which could broadcast on that frequency. When the sirens went off, the message went out to the infected: Run!”
“Hayes, I hate you again.”
“I deserve that. But don't you see, it was perfect. The sirens go off and the small number of infected in their homes or sitting in backyards run out to spread their cough. Before all this happened we actually thought we'd have trouble getting our virus to spread. We worried the flu victims would curl up in bed and we'd miss our opportunity.”
“And are they working now? We saw tons of zombies walking back toward downtown when we were in our boat. Is that why they're all packed against this building?”
Hayes laughed, but not in a funny way this time.
“We have digital sirens on the roof of this building. Sort of massive dog whistles designed to be subsonic for humans, but the sound is like a dinner bell for the infected. We were field testing a way to bring them all down here so we could dispose of them. Imagine how easy it would be if we could gather them in one place.”
“So we have to get down on the ground, run through the crowd of dinner bell zombies, get into the tunnel, and then deal with the mercenaries before they can get her across the river to their impenetrable base. Sound about right?”
“Yes. That's right. But I do have a plan.”
After hearing it, Liam really wanted to devise an alternate plan and dazzle everyone. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any alternative that didn't involve fighting the thousands of zombies at the base of the hotel in close combat. He'd have to work with Hayes' plan.
“I'm a big fan of George S. Patton. Studied his books. He always had his staff prepare three contingencies for every situation, the assumption being he would never be caught with his pants down. At the Battle of the Bulge he was able to march his soldiers in the dead of winter to help repulse the Germans a hundred miles away. This was because of his excellent foresight. A detail man. I like to think I'm a worthy student of his ways.”
He paused to watch Liam smack his lips. Liam smiled nervously after noisily inhaling the food.
“Sorry.”
“All right. Escape route number one was the stairwell you came up—and Dutch went down. I had all the doors of the south stairwell welded shut so the staff could descend without fear of zombies stumbling in during those early days. But that's ruined now.”
Liam interrupted. “Why did you put city names on all those doors?”
“Isn't it obvious? It's where we got all the zombies on each floor. Try to keep up.”
Hayes walked back and forth in the kitchen area while he explained his thought process. “So, escape route number two is the one I'm giving to you and escape route number three is one I'm saving for Jane and myself.”
“Why do we get this one? It seems really dangerous.”
“Because I'm afraid of heights.”
Liam couldn't tell if he was serious, but he wasn't smiling which was unusual for the terminally jovial man.
Victoria asked about the third route, but Hayes didn't think Patton would reveal his strategy in detail until it was absolutely necessary. He emulated the dead general.
They hashed over some details while they stood in the kitchen and all of them jumped at the loud banging on the hotel stairwell door.
“I think the infected have come up the stairs now that Dutch has gone back down. He probably wedged open all the interior doors if I know him. We couldn't go down the stairs if we wanted to.”
He was resigned to Hayes' plan. He and Victoria let Hayes and Jane lead them through a door to an adjacent penthouse suite where the scope of Hayes' study of Patton was on full display. One of the windows had all its glass removed and was covered with heavy plastic sheeting. A large spool of metal cable was bolted to the concrete floor. Several pieces of rigging and safety harnesses were lying nearby.
“How did you guys know to build this thing? This is amazing.”
“You must not read as many zombie and global infection books as your boyfriend. Always assume things are going to go to hell. Always.”
Liam wasn't going to agree, no matter how right he was.
“OK then. So you unwind the spool of wire out the window, then Liam and me latch on and scoot ourselves down to the roof of the garage. Just like that?”
Hayes responded in the affirmative, though he seemed to enjoy her obvious discomfort.
“I should mention there may be zombies at the windows as you scale down the exterior. I don't think they'll give you any problems—the glass is pretty thick—but I wouldn't window shop on your descent if I were you.”
Liam was still deeply disturbed. “Is there anything else you aren't telling us?”
He brought back his normal joviality. “Oh, plenty. I don't have a week to tell you all my secrets. You'll just have to trust me on this one.”
Trust you? Over my dead body. Wait—
Minutes later they were ready to go. Jane peeled back the heavy plastic with a flourish so the room was open to the outside. The effect was dizzying. Liam held on to the spool of wire with a death grip. Victoria, he noticed, clenched his arm with both her hands.
Hayes pulled at the cable so it began to unspool. He attached a heavy piece of steel to the end of the wire and placed it just outside the window.
“We'll let this thing go down to the bottom, then you guys can start your journey.” He threw a switch and the spool began to unwind automatically. A small motor hummed as the wire drained out the window. They all watched the wire go.
Moments later, from somewhere in the building b
elow, they heard a loud bang. It was chased by a slight vibration, and then the power went out. The spool ceased rotating.
Hayes' only statement was, “Uh oh.” He wore real panic in his eyes.
I wonder if we just lost plan number two?
2
“What happened?”
“Well, my dear Liam, the power went out. He put the explosives on a timer. Dutch was true to his word.” He fiddled with the spool as he spoke. “This means we have to get this thing spinning manually. I don't think it will affect your journey, or mine you'll be happy to know. However, if the power is out below us, the doors are all unlocked now. It won't take the infected very long to push them open and get up here in greater numbers.”
“Why didn't you secure them inside the rooms?”
“Must you criticize everything I do?” He looked at Liam with no humor.
“Is this a big deal for us? I mean we aren't going back down on the inside.” Victoria asked Hayes, but she looked at Liam.
“Until a couple dozen types of zombies run outside and tear apart St. Louis...” He said it to be funny, but Hayes must have seen the look on their faces. Instead, he said, “No, you'll be just fine. Let me worry about them. Get into those harnesses before something else goes wrong.”
Liam had no intention of ignoring them, but at the moment he had no alternatives. He and Victoria suited up in the climbing gear.
The spool spun freely as more wire fired out the window—pulled by gravity and the heavy weight on the end. It wasn't long before the spool locked up once all the wire was depleted.
“There will be extra slack at the bottom. You have to go now. We need to be going our separate ways.”
Not one to argue, Liam maneuvered himself so he was attached to the wire, and then worked his way to the edge. Victoria attached herself to the wire as well, then stood behind him.
Liam couldn't shake the feeling he was about to be betrayed.
“Hayes, if this is how you intend to kill us, can you just shoot us instead. I can't stand the suspense.” He was being smarmy as part of his bravado, but deep down he was being honest.
Hayes laughed. “Come on, you said you were starting to like me. I prefer you alive. We've had our differences, and you drive me crazy with your persistence, but we want the same thing now. Plus, as I've said so many times, if I wanted you dead I would have just killed you with my sentry gun or a hundred other ways and been done with you. I'm not going to murder you for sport.”
Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3 Page 25