He could see a way through to the nearby roof where he hoped Grandma was still waiting for them.“Come on, girlfriend.” He was momentarily giddy at being alive; at being with her.
The grinding sound of all the shifting pieces of the bridge was unnaturally loud. He gained some height as he climbed the ribbing of a shipping container to get a better view of the whole wreck. He reached the top and figured out he was almost precisely at the point where he'd fallen in. The boat that saved him from Duchesne was directly ahead of him. It consisted of three barges in a row pushed by a burly tug that threw up huge rooster tails of propeller churn behind it. Like an icebreaker, it was intentionally pushing itself into the immovable object...
“Victoria, we don't have much time. Look!” He pointed to the ship as she joined him on the container's top, though it was impossible to miss.
Victoria took in the scene for a few moments, and seemed more concerned than Liam about the location of the roof—now in line to be run over. She didn't see Grandma where she'd left her.
For a panicked moment he thought she was also sucked under by the big wave. Nothing could have survived the impact.
He took another quick look upriver. There were dozens of loose barges coming in their direction. They bounced off the piers of the bridges upriver like billiard balls redirecting after a powerful break. The huge logjam on which they stood couldn't last forever with such overwhelming weight bearing down on it.
“There she is!” Victoria screamed in joy. Grandma had moved from her roof to the inside of a partially crumpled shipping container. She was out of the direct path of the tugboat. A zombie was sprawled on the debris nearby, though it wasn't moving very much. Victoria started to climb down. Liam took a few more seconds to get his bearings on Grandma before following. He also looked toward the Missouri side, hoping for an obvious escape route. The Illinois side was not an option because of the efforts of the powerful ship trying to cut open the blockade.
Back to St. Louis we go.
3
Victoria reached Grandma a few moments before him. They hugged each other like long lost friends. Liam was tempted to try to make it a three-person hug, but opted to save the celebration for terra firma.
“I saw you kids in a dream. You were swimming.” She let out a weak laugh. “I thought I finally bought the farm.”
Liam and Victoria traded concerned looks.
“Yeah, we did go for a dip.” Liam wasn't ready to tell her how they were saved, though at some point he wanted to sit down with her and have a long, peaceful chat about everything he'd seen and done the past couple weeks. For now, the threats of the moment overshadowed any deeper discussion.
Liam let slip a bad curse word. He couldn't help himself once recognized the identity of the zombie on the ground at his feet. With a closer look, he determined he wasn't infected.
Duchesne wasn't a zombie, but his body was ruined and bloody like one. Apparently he'd been tossed up onto the wreckage by the same giant wave which sucked them under. Instructing Grandma to stay put, he and Victoria moved closer to the injured man; he was on his back staring at the sky very near the water's edge. As they arrived over him, his eyes focused. One of his hands was nearly severed and he had many lacerations along that side of his body. The wooden planks beneath him were stained red.
“Liam. Help me. You must. I can save your Grandma.”
Liam was horrified to realize he wanted to help the broken man. Despite everything Duchesne had done. Despite the fact he had to be lying. He tore off his t-shirt and tried to staunch the bleeding.
He spoke to him in a strained voice.“Did you infect my Grandma? I have to know.”
His only reply was a bloody-lipped smile. One of his eyes was swelled shut and he looked pale.
“Liam no. You can't help him. We have to get Grandma to safety. You have to let him go. There is no cure.”
Turning up to her, he said, “But he'll die if I don't help him.” Turning back, he continued, “He has to save her.” He felt the tears welling up behind the anger.
“He's dead already. As much as I hate him, I wouldn't let him die if I could save him. Out here, on this floating nightmare, nobody can.”
“She's right, Liam. She's honest. I like that about her.” He tilted his head slightly in her direction, “and because you were honest I'll be honest with you. Hayes put a tracking device in your phone and we've been tracking your movements all this time. Cool trick, huh?”
“I already told you it was always off. I was saving it for the day phone service returned so I could call my parents.” She had a defiant look as she stood above him.
“We tracked you whether it was on or off.”
“But when did you put it in? I never let it out of my sight.”
Duchesne gave a wet laugh. “You'll have to ask Hayes. Not my concern.”
He kept talking, with increasing difficulty. “Liam, listen. I need you.”
Liam warily moved closer, still holding his bloody shirt on the man's side in a futile attempt to prolong his life.
“History will look unkindly on what we did for our country.” He was glassy-eyed as he spoke. “It's up to you to set the record straight. We were building a better country so we could lead the world as we were meant to do. This was your country. Your tribe. Tell everyone the truth of it.”
Liam was shocked at the audacity. His reply reflected his anger.
“You mean the truth about how you unleashed a plague so you could eliminate your political enemies? You did all this to kill women like my Grandma Rose. Are you nuts?”
Another wet giggle. “No, listen. We were making something better out of the world. People like your dad were the ones ruining it. You have to see that now…”
“Wait. What? My dad?”
“Oh.” He coughed for twenty or thirty seconds, then tried to catch his breath for an equal amount of time. “I may have left that part out.” Blood drained from the side of his mouth and he smacked his lips to clear it.
Liam felt himself walking the razor's edge between sobbing and stabbing the man in the heart. He did everything he could to stay in between the lines.
“Please. Tell me what my dad has to do with all this. Was he—”
The conspiracy gene activated.
“—NIS?”
Duchesne coughed out a spray of blood with his laugh, forcing Liam and Victoria to recoil. The bottom half of his face was splattered with it. Still, he motioned with one finger for Liam to get closer. He drew him in all the way to his face.
His voice became a whisper, “The NIS would never...take a traitor like your dad.” He made a weak effort to spit on Liam, but he saw it coming. He moved back to safety.
“Traitor? You're the traitor. You betrayed the whole human race!” Liam pulled back his shirt, causing a slight whimper from the dying man.
“But I never betrayed the United States of...” He trailed off. His eyes rolled up into his head.
The situation reminded Liam of another death he'd witnessed back at Elk Meadow. Colonel McMurphy came to him after he was infected and just before his death asked him to consider finding another camp so they could test Grandma. He'd already resolved never to go near a government camp again—a decision which proved correct. At the time Liam said nothing, not wanting to take a dump on the man's last words. This time however, he was ready to unload.
“Not only am I going to do everything I can to get the history books correct, I'm going to write my own book and tell mankind about YOUR plague. I'm going to do everything I can to expose you to the world as the piece of filth you are. I'll kill all your NIS people for causing this. I'll destroy your fortresses. I'll raise an army. Your name will be synonymous with coward. Mankind will spit at the mere mention of the name Duchesne. I will—”
He went on for many seconds before Victoria interrupted him.
“Liam. He's gone.”
He just stared. He had so much more to say. So much to unload on the man who, on the face of it, wa
s directly responsible for every piece of this broken bridge, every zombie walking the Earth, and every dead person now fading from life's story. He could hardly accept the impossibility that his life would intersect with the one man responsible for bringing the fictional world of zombies to his own doorstep. It gave him some comfort to know whatever else happened today, at least this man was dead. He really was going to write a book someday. He willed himself to remember Duchesne's last words for the final chapter.
Grandma broke his introspection. “Liam, he's dead. You've got to go.”
Liam looked up at Grandma and his eye caught sight of a small black drone many feet above her. He didn't linger on it.
“OK. We have to keep moving. This whole dam is about to collapse.” He pointed over his back at the barge still assaulting the debris and the multitude of loose barges coming down the river behind it.
“I'm exhausted. I can't even move. Doctor would probably say I had a stroke.” She laughed, but not convincingly. “I don't think I can make it to the shore from here.” She pointed to the Illinois side.
“Sorry, Grandma. We have to go that way.” He thumbed toward the Missouri side, which was twice as far.
“Oh dear. You two should go. Get to safety and I'll take my chances here.”
He experienced deja vu. Almost two weeks ago he was faced with a similar dilemma as he and Grandma talked about leaving the city or staying in her home. At the time Liam had thought about leaving her, if only so he could run and get his dad to take care of her. Now, the notion of leaving her never crossed his mind. He wasn't going to sacrifice all the miracles that helped her survive this long.
“No, Grandma. You're always coming with us.”
Rather than discuss it, he grabbed Grandma around the back, and motioned for Victoria to do the same. With a helper under each arm, she hobbled along the shifting debris. He couldn't help but feel the weight of the decision, once made. Looking ahead, it was daunting. He couldn't look behind now, but the chugging engines of the tugboat, the overarching aroma of death, and the creaking and crunching sounds and vibrations of the garbage and debris under them was overpowering. As emphasis the tugboat captain began to lay on his air horns.
“My heavens, more sirens.”
Liam was encouraged to make something happen. “Move up there. That beam looks like it reaches that other flipped barge. We can run along that if we can get up there.”
They moved up, slowed to a crawl when they had to balance along the shaky beam. Some of the loose barges slammed into the blockage directly in front of them. Without a powerful tug behind them, they didn't have enough force to break the blockade, but as they piled up one after the other they pushed the existing debris further and further upward toward them. It also increased the vibrations throughout the wreckage.
Victoria slipped as she reached the hull of the flipped barge. She stabilized herself and had a look of dismay at how close she'd come to falling over the side. The slimy bottom of the overturned barge was a considerable obstacle. They paused while trying to determine what to do.
Victoria asked, “Can we slide down it?”
It was canted slightly toward the downstream side of the mountain. Falling off the backside would put them back into the core of the wreckage, but there was no way to see what they'd be falling into. Victoria and Liam might get lucky, but Grandma probably couldn't handle such a ride.
“I have an idea. Grandma, I'm going to lay down and you're going to lay on my back. Hold onto my neck like a piggy back ride, OK?”
He figured she would argue as she was wont to do, but this time she said nothing. It took a minute to situate herself, but they got it worked out. Liam moved along the edge of the barge, using the angle of the bottom and side of the hull as a way to hang on as he moved from the front to the back end. Since his head and arms were higher than his feet as he slithered along, he was able to prevent himself from sliding down what was essentially a slimy piece of playground equipment. His bare chest and pants were a disaster, covered with slime and who-knows-what from the river, but at least they made progress. Victoria did the same, using her ruined white shirt and jeans to slide along.
When they reached the end of the barge, they saw what was beyond the hull. A large gap to the water below. There were a couple of zombies splashing down there. If they'd rushed their plan, they'd have slid off the edge and fallen twenty or more feet into the water.
Liam re-adjusted Grandma so she was next to him. Victoria dropped the ten feet over the side, to the deck of a small commercial fishing boat jammed in among the empty barges. It was covered in mud, as if it had been dredged from a mud bank before floating here.
“I'm sorry, Grandma, you're going to get messy.”
“It's OK, I'm due for a washing anyway.” She gave him her patented wink as she dropped over the side with his help. Victoria was on the bottom to grab her and make sure she reached the bottom safely. Together they slipped on the muddy planks.
Liam was about to drop down himself when he saw the powerful tug start to push through the debris. In slow motion he watched the tugboat move faster and faster into the wreck, as if drilling inward. It broke through. The far pylon that once supported the bridge above fell over as everything broke loose. It made a huge splash downriver and threw water so high in the air he could see it over the wreckage pile.
The blockade runner blared his horn in triumph as he chugged through.
Knowing it was impossible for Grandma, he still said it.
“Run!”
4
They were very close to Missouri-side pier of the fallen bridge. Liam took some comfort the pier was still there, as it would hold some of the wreckage in place even if the rest of the dam cut loose. However, as more and more pieces of debris peeled off the blockage to follow the tugboat, the middle would continue to get smaller. They wouldn't be safe until they were off the water.
There was no obvious path to get to solid ground. Most of what remained were various sizes and shapes of barges jammed together, but they shifted dangerously up and down with the wave action and impacts from arriving debris.
“Liam, I'm done. I can't cross that. Al said I wouldn't make it to safety.”
“Moses is already ashore. You'll make it to the promised land of Missouri.” He knew she wouldn't know he was talking about his rifle, which was laying somewhere near where they launched the motorboat.
Scanning the debris, he wondered if they could cross the variously spaced decks while they bumped and separated in the turbulence.
I'll die trying.
“All right, Grandma. No way Grandpa would tell you not to try. I need you to get on my back again. We're going to give it everything we've got.”
“Oh Liam. You can't. It's too much.”
“We have no choice.” Victoria spoke quietly given the noises around them, but they heard her. “Liam has to try to run you across. I'll try to help where I can. I'll go first and be there when he has to jump with you. Please, just try?”
Liam looked back one more time. The barges spilled through the gap like curious cows heading for an open gate. It wouldn't be long before the barges on their part of the wreckage started to draw backward to seek their own freedom. Then he'd literally be stuck in the middle with no way out.
Grandma wasn't finished; she tried to use every option she had. “Maybe we could just get in one of these barges and ride out of here?”
Liam spoke as fast as he could. “Well, Grandma, I guess if we have no choice we can drop into one of them, but we have no assurance the barge won't flip or otherwise get damaged as it goes through the gap in the wreck. Also—,” he surveyed the sky as if to add emphasis, “Duchesne's helpers are still out there. We'd be sitting ducks in a barge.”
Victoria added, “We could also float all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico before we came ashore, if at all.”
Grandma let herself be put on Liam's back.
“Hold on tight. Don't let go!”
His dad
had often said that when he was on the swing set, the climbing wall at the playground, or learning to ride his bicycle. It seemed appropriate.
Victoria went ahead. The first jump was a difficult one. It was from a lower barge to a higher one. She had a rough landing as she hit her knees on the side, but she scrambled up and over. Liam used a similar running jump technique and also hit his knees as he tried to clear the deck. Victoria steadied Grandma at the very edge and helped them both up.
“I think she passed out on your back. Hold her tight.”
They ran lengthwise down the next barge. They were 200 feet closer to shore. The next jump was onto a barge that was alternating between too high and too low. It was sideways relative to the one they were on.
“We have to time this just right.”
It was easy for Victoria. She planted the landing perfectly, then crouched down to keep stable on the bouncing boat. She faced the hold for a long time before spinning back around with a chipper plea.
“OK, Liam. Come on over.”
The gap widened as he ran with Grandma. The barge under him started heading backward to the hole in the debris field. He didn't dare stop. He landed as the other boat moved lower, but he was just a bit short again. He landed hard, tipping to his left side. Grandma somehow managed to hang on, even though her left side took some of the brunt of the fall.
The entire debris field was disintegrating. The barge they'd just left was already fifty feet away.
“Now or never, Liam!”
Victoria got up and ran a short way lengthwise along the walkway of the deck, then she turned and dashed across the front. Liam looked into the hold as he caught his breath—it was full of living zombies. They were packed in like sardines but someone tried to hide them by throwing a huge black tarp over them. The canvas moved up and down everywhere, and where it was torn there were heads and arms sticking out.
“You could have told me what was down there!” He shouted to Victoria, though he knew what she would say. They had no choice in any of it.
“I didn't want to scare you!”
He huffed while carrying Grandma, but made it to the far corner of the deck with Victoria. She lined up to jump to the last barge next to the shore. It pointed into the debris but began to turn as it and the barge they were on were called out into the river. Liam thought she'd jump to the final barge then to shore, but she changed her angle to make a much longer jump to a section of fallen roadway that linked directly to shore. Victoria fell hard on the pavement with a loud grunt, but recovered quickly and looked up at Liam, beckoning him to follow.
Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3 Page 30