Liam watched. Grandma was a filthy mess. She was covered in mud and green slime from being in the water and out on the wreckage. But Liam only saw her bright eyes as his chest swelled with pride at taking care of her for so long. He and Victoria got her out. They were a great team.
“Well Grandma, we do have one more journey to make. And wouldn't you know it, we're back in St. Louis.” He laughed, and he put on a brave face talking to Victoria, but he felt so tired and worn out he didn't think he had it in him to face more challenges like he'd just endured. Not only were they totally alone in the city filled with zombies, they were out of food, out of water, and most critically they had no weapons. They were sitting in a little bowl of safety near the collapsed bridge, but once they went up the ramp and into the city—it would be hand-to-hand for thirty miles. Even the boats were swept away when the bridge pier tumbled in as the dam broke apart.
They rose to their feet and gathered themselves together for the climb up the ramp of the fallen bridge. It was the same path he and Victoria had taken hours earlier. Maybe one of them could slide into the hotel and find some weapons. Going down to the waterfront by the Arch to get Moses would be suicide with all the zombies walking down there. He tried to think like a survivor. He was a survivor.
They crossed the threshold of rock and rebar at the bottom and began walking up the slope of the collapsed highway. Grandma was between them. She looked up and called for a halt. “Look up there.”
A lone zombie stood at the top of the incline. He was on the flat surface of the raised highway. His clothes could have come from Liam's closet: blue jeans, a black t-shirt with a college logo, a red baseball cap. A few others drifted up from behind the first. In moments there were a dozen.
Liam had been shielding himself from the truth. Something he'd ignored as best he could every minute of every day since he'd left with Grandma out her front door. He was never going to be able to avoid the zombies forever. He'd finally reached the moment he knew was coming. It eventually caught everyone.
I can't save her.
“Children, put me down,” she whispered.
As one they all got on their knees, willing the infected not to look down, but knowing it was inevitable.
“I'm so sorry Grandma,” was all that Victoria could get out while she teared up.
Liam gave her a quick hug. “Is this right? I don't want to leave you.”
“Liam. Go. I love you. Go!” She shouted, forcing his hand.
The cries of the zombies above rose as they acquired their prey.
“It can't happen like this.” But Liam had stepped away from her, resolved to run. Knowing this painful moment had finally caught up to him. The tiny form of his Grandma remained on her knees, though she hunched forward to hold herself up with her hands. Her knees were too frail to support her body.
Please God, make it painless for her.
Victoria grabbed his hand as he heard a familiar sound.
Buzzzzzzzzz.
He looked up the ramp to see several zombies get sliced in half.
Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzzzzzzz.
Arms exploded. Heads were severed. Large holes appeared in the torsos of others. When nipped in the leg, they tipped over. Some tried to turn around to the new threat. Most never had the chance.
A final sweep eliminated the remaining infected. Body pieces were pushed by the powerful impacts of the chain gun; some went flying over their heads. Others rolled down the incline. A leg tumbled the fifty feet down the yellow dashed line on the pavement; it skidded sloppily to a stop just in front of Grandma. Liam spent a long minute soaking in the impossibility of it all.
Not impossible. Just improbable. Grandma, I love you too.
Grandma remained pragmatic, “I guess we should go up and thank our saviors. Whoever they are, they can't be worse than Duchesne and his people. We don't have much chance on our own with nothing but wet clothes on our backs.”
Her words made sense. They had no weapons. No tools. No nothing. But he could think of people who would give Duchesne a run for his money on the evil scale. Gang bangers. Looters. Camo-clad predators. All those working to snuff civilization. They all made impressions on him these past weeks, though if one were to only compare death tolls, Duchesne won that contest hands-down. He directed people like Hayes to do great evil. No one person in history had caused as many deaths by their actions as him.
But, a leg just slid up to her.
“Grandma, does anything phase you? You didn't blink at the sight of that bloody leg.”
From her knees she turned around with a big smile. “Neither did you.”
That was all they could say about another in a long line of miracles they'd experienced today.
Together they walked up the angled section of roadway. Liam had his hand behind Grandma's back, as did Victoria. He could feel his girlfriend as their arms rubbed together behind the frail little old lady between them. Their fates were now intertwined, symbolically as well as literally.
Liam laughed as they walked. He thought about being back in the city. Back where they started. “What have we accomplished so far? We're now heading back into the collapsed city we spent two weeks escaping. A hotel with thirty floors of mutant zombies is emptying nearby. We have the bosses of Duchesne to worry about. And who knows whether Hayes was telling the truth. Grandma may have been infected, but she appears OK. What does that mean? We have more problems now than we did back in the simple days of just running from zombies.”
“Life is messy, Liam. It doesn't fit into neat compartments like those books you read. When you get to be my age you'll realize that. You just do the best you can when it splatters all over you. God never gives you more than you can handle. In your case, this all helped you find this pretty girl here. You found each other. I'd say that balances things out. Love is a precious resource.”
He looked at Victoria and smiled. She gave a big smile back to him. Her necklace hung outside her stained, cropped, and soaked t-shirt. The cross was wet, but crisp and clean. It gave him comfort as it did when he first met her.
Grandma continued as they neared the top, “This bridge reminds me of a question for you, Liam. Your grandpa showed me a memory and he said it was from your favorite book. In it I was standing on another bridge looking out over the water to the Golden Gate Bridge. I forget what he called it. There was a little green coupe sitting alone on the huge span, but it had been destroyed by nesting birds and other animals. Do you know what I'm talking about?”
“Of course. That's from one of my favorite books of all time—Earth Abides. The story ends when a plague survivor grows so old he gets a little senile, and during a big fire that burned the abandoned city of San Francisco, the younger generations in his tribe—his descendants—carry him across that bridge and by that car. He'd seen it many years earlier when it and the bridge were new. When he saw it again in his old age, it helped him come to the realization that though man and the work's of man are destined to fall into the ocean, the Earth itself would survive. Thus the title, Earth abides.”
“Thank you. That sounds like a wonderful story. Maybe I'd like to read it.”
Though he wasn't yet an old man with a tribe of survivors to his credit like his hero in that book, he realized they'd done better than most during the present, real-life crisis now consuming his world. He'd heard about old people giving up and letting death take them because they were afraid of the unknown ahead of them. He'd seen parents abandon children. He'd seen the undead walk, and countless deaths by their teeth. It was more horrific than any book. Where so many had fallen, his group survived. If Grandma had been infected, and something in her had cured it, she could hold the key to the whole thing. It would help them retake the world from the darkness enveloping it. Not many people on Earth could claim to be doing so much. There were still many challenges ahead of them—including whatever was over the next rise.
Liam felt like praying. He only really knew one prayer that was appropriate here, though if
he'd asked Grandma she'd probably have several better ideas.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...”
The other two joined in without hesitation.
All around him the works of man were broken and defiled. This bridge had already tumbled into the water, though it was brought down by man, not nature. The Arch was scorched. The city was a husk. The river was coughing up hulls full of bodies. The worst of man was being purged.
It was true, the Earth would abide. But so would mankind. He was going to do everything in his power to make sure his own book didn't end with humans ceding all the advances of modern civilization to the zombies and to oblivion. If he was lucky enough to survive the day and live a long life he was going to fight the zombies until his dying breath. He would also fight the Duchesne's of the world—all those men and women sitting in their comfy bunkers. They were waiting to restart society in their own perverted image. They would find him instead.
Grandma said, “If everyone waits for the perfect heroes to come along, the world dies waiting.” Liam knew they were imperfect heroes extraordinaire, but he was willing to fight for the world. He would read every book on the apocalypse he could find. He would study military tactics. He would lead tribes of people from the Old World. The old would mentor the young. Anything it takes to rebuild. The pieces were all there for anyone willing to do the work.
He had faith they could pull it off.
Liam remembered his own memory. Something from that Old World he'd been dying to do since he first thought of it.
“Hold up guys. Victoria, will you hold Grandma? Grandma, can I have my phone back?”
“Of course dear.” She pulled the phone out of her pants pocket. A small miracle it hadn't been lost.
Liam excitedly took a few steps back down the incline. When he turned around he had his camera ready to go. “I've been wanting to take your pictures for days now.” He gave them a big smile and then tried to slide his phone open. He stared at it for a long moment.
“Is it working Liam? It did get very wet in Grandma's pocket.” She laughed, letting him know it was OK.
“Yeah, I can't tell if it's broken or just needs to be recharged.”
“Isn't that the way of the world?”
Grandma's response soothed him. He wore a real smile as he rejoined them. “I'll get your picture yet. Just you wait.”
As they crested the collapsed highway he could see the familiar outline of an MRAP parked fifty yards down the littered highway.
“Thank you, God, for letting us win one.”
###
Next Trilogy
Thank you for reading Stop the Sirens. This completes the first trilogy of books in the Since the Sirens universe. As a storyteller and a reader I like things organized into nice compartments. This is the edge of one such compartment.
As Marty, Liam, and Victoria walk up the incline of the destroyed bridge and see the familiar shape of the MRAP, we can imagine they jump in and ride off into the sunset. I wrote Since the Sirens, Siren Songs, and Stop the Sirens as the introductory “Sirens” trilogy to this world. We've met the main cast, we know a little about the origins of the plague, and we've met a few of the zombies. If you choose to get off the bus, please imagine they made out just fine.
Or...
Maybe you still have questions that need answers, as I do, about the many threads still dangling from this ratty old sweater called the Zombie Apocalypse. If so, I invite you into my next trilogy, which I'm calling the “Valkyries” trilogy. In the first volume, Last Fight of the Valkyries, Marty, Liam, and Victoria walk up that ramp right back into the action. Liam figures out what was on the data chip left by Colonel McMurphy, and a clue sends him toward a major revelation about what the zombie plague is going to do to humanity. At the same time, Marty desperately wants to believe her visions with Aloysius are more than the coping mechanism of a crazy person. But when young women from her dreams begin to show up in her life, she's convinced the dementia has finally caught her.
While the zombies swirl around them, a larger storm brews as the vestiges of the US Government continue to faithfully execute anyone it suspects of having participated in, or supported the Patriot Snowball. In the ultimate expression of the bureaucratic nightmare, departments of the government seem to simultaneously want to spread the plague as well as cure it. And those most responsible for unleashing the virus are not happy that one of their own shared his secret with a young pair of teens in St. Louis, Missouri.
Books five and six are in the planning stages. They take place in Kansas and Colorado.
Thank you for being a reader.
EE Isherwood, February 2016
To learn of Book 4's release: http://www.zombiebooks.net
Last Fight of the Valkyries: Promo Blurb
The escape is over. The race to save civilization begins.
The most precious resources in the Zombie Apocalypse aren't bullets, food, or secure bunkers. It's the vanishing elderly. A rare few over the age of 90 survive. Some died within hours, when the power shut off. Some died in days, as their meds ran out. Others succumbed to the elements, died by the teeth of the zombies, or made easy marks for desperate criminals.
Grandma Marty is 104. Unlike almost everyone else, she has a resistance to the plague. An elusive protection only found in some people over the age of 100. It makes her an instant fugitive from those who unleashed the plague, and an instant rally point for those fighting to find the cure.
With teens Liam and Victoria by her side, Marty does what she can in the real world—but she also experiences a dream-like state inside her mind where she interacts with an image of her long-dead husband. Unsure if she's going senile under the stresses of the Apocalypse, or being graced by the presence of an angel, she does her best to hold it all together. A tall order when zombies walk the Earth.
Now, two weeks since the sirens, and fresh off surviving a brush with the people who made the plague, Liam and Victoria are rescued by remnants of a Marine Corps strike force. Also rescued is a young woman who literally crawled out of a pile of dead bodies inside a medical lab. Grandma knows her; she saw her in her dreams.
Last Fight of the Valkyries is part one of a new trilogy in the Since the Sirens universe created by E.E. Isherwood. Please enjoy a short sample on the following pages.
Last Fight of the Valkyries: Sample From Chapter 1
...
Mel put her foot on the gas and the MRAP lurched ahead. If Liam hadn't been paying attention to her voice, he might have taken a dive when it happened. He looked at the bodies on the ground behind them, thinking how easily it could have been for him to get pulled out. “Whoever was sitting in that last seat,” he thought. On a prior journey in this very truck Liam had been sitting in that last seat, though on that ride it saved his life because he was the first one out the back in an emergency.
The truck ran right through the outfield wall's gate. Mel didn't wait to see if they could close it. She went through much too fast. It was shattered now. There were too many zombies behind them to contemplate a fast fix.
“We'll do a loop and—”
Liam struggled to get over the legs of those sitting in the rear, aware the rear doors were swaying back and forth in the open position. He gave Grandma and Victoria a quick look and a thumbs up as he got to the front of the compartment.
Ahead, barely visible through the blood stains on the glass and the live people clinging to the hood, Liam recognized the two US Marine Corps V-22 Ospreys. But it was difficult to ascertain what was happening until Mel turned to the right, toward left field, when they got a better look through the clear window on her side.
The Ospreys had their propellers spinning, but the rear doors hung open like the tongues of two tired hound dogs. They were near first base and third base respectively but turned so they unloaded toward second base. He saw no movement inside the cargo areas. Outside, on the dirt of the infield, a handful of Marines pointed weapons at a large gro
up of survivors near the dugouts.
“What the hell is going on here,” he asked anyone who could see the action.
“It looks like the Marines aren't here to rescue these people,” was Phil's answer.
Liam knew where at least some of the Marines had gone. They died in the cavernous circular hotel near the Arch. It was the same place he, Grandma, and Victoria had escaped that very morning. He began responding to Phil when Mel veered sharply toward the planes.
“We have no choice. Our only hope is to get on one of those and get out of here.”
Phil gave a quick sigh. “I doubt they'll welcome us with open arms.” He thumbed toward the crowds ahead. “Doesn't look like they're letting anyone in, and I'm not sure I want to fight the US military. In fact I'm pretty sure I don't.”
That gave Liam an idea. He'd met the Marines. He “escaped” from the Marines. That realization gave him pause. “Will they cuff me, or shoot me,” he wondered. Then he thought of the women in the back. His friends next to him. It was a smarter play than fighting.
“Get me close. I think I can get us in.”
Mel and Phil looked at him with the “he's just a crazy kid” eyes, but didn't second guess him.
Liam met the commander of one unit of Marines back at Camp Hope—the base of operations for the Boy Scouts in the south suburbs of St. Louis. At the time, the commander had been looking for a man who was responsible for kidnapping his great-grandma, so Liam was inclined to help him. However, Liam couldn't absolutely trust him, so he and Victoria slipped away before they could give the man a proper goodbye. Liam hoped they'd welcome him because of the information he carried about the fate of the Marines in the Riverside Hotel.
“OK, Liam, I'm going to park us just beyond that one on the left. Since the doors are already open in the back we can practically jump right onto their ramp.” She was gracious enough not to mention they might be shot on sight as a threat to the Marines guarding the planes. Mixing Marines with Army units in combat was bad enough. Mixing Marines with civilians in a US Army MRAP was seven layers of stupid.
Stop the Sirens: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 3 Page 32