Zombie Escape:
More Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 1
© 2018 E.E. Isherwood. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
Series Introduction
Chapter 1. Hurry it Along
Chapter 2. Denial Ain't Just in Egypt
Chapter 3. Toxic
Chapter 4. Propane Accessories
Chapter 5. Mama Bear
Chapter 6. Orange Crush
Chapter 7. The Things Without Names
Chapter 8. 100% Dave
Chapter 9. Caught With the Pin-up Girl
Chapter 10. Seeing the Waters of Creation
Chapter 11. Robbie Comes Back From The War
Chapter 12. Save Our Souls
Chapter 13. Peeping Tom
Chapter 14. MRAP Swim Club
Chapter 15. Reorient. Reacquire.
Chapter 16. The Last Bullet
Chapter 17. Flyin' J-turn Finale
Epilogue: Escape in Progress
About E.E. Isherwood
Series Introduction
The Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse
It has been 20 days since tornado sirens heralded the onset of the zombie apocalypse. Liam and his girlfriend Victoria survived those three weeks by hiding, running from, and fighting the zombies, but they also tangled with a rogue agency of the US government that knows every detail about how the zombie apocalypse got started.
So far, we know this: the zombie plague was caused by human meddling in a virus that had been on earth for a very long time. Buttons were pushed. Errors were introduced. The virus that could have made humanity immortal instead set them on a path to die forever, as zombies.
There is a cure. It lies dormant in people over 100 years old, like Liam’s grandma Marty, but survivors of that age are now as rare as a tray of ice cubes in a world that is powering down.
Liam and Victoria have one mission: Find Grandma Marty and get her to Denver. A supercomputer needs the three of them to unlock it, so the cure can be delivered.
Wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t a million zombies on their heels.
***
If you are interested in what happened in the first 20 days of this zombie outbreak, you can read books 1-6 of the Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series. However, Zombie Escape begins a new chapter in this universe and there is no requirement to read the earlier volumes. You don't even have to scan the list of actors on the next page if you don't want to.
List of Actors From Previous Series
Liam Peters. Sixteen years old. From St. Louis, MO. Lover of zombie literature. Video gamer. Victoria is his "Zombie Apocalypse" girlfriend. Survived non-nuclear ICBM strike. Last seen crawling out of Mississippi River across from Cairo, IL to start Zombie Escape book.
Marty Peters. One hundred and four years old. From St. Louis, MO. Liam's great-grandmother. Fond of sitting in her chair and crocheting. Has computer-generated visions of her dead husband Al. Last seen in Cairo, IL under the watchful eye of Chloe Bridger.
Victoria Hennessey. Seventeen years old. From Denver, Colorado, but stuck in St. Louis when the apocalypse began. Pre-medical school student. Was with Liam when they both endured a non-nuclear ICBM attack. Last seen emerging from river with Liam at start of Zombie Escape.
Lana Peters. Liam's mother. Has a little medical background. Can use a rifle. Managed a national protest against US government by using her son's video game as a virtual meeting place with others in the movement. Presumed dead after being attacked by her zombie husband on day 20.
Jerry Peters. Liam's father. Self-described gun nut and prepper. Injured with leg fracture in early zombie fighting, and then died on day 14. Makes final appearance on day 20. Changed into a zombie, he attacks his wife Lana as part of Elsa Cantwell's revenge against Liam.
Elsa Cantwell. Leader of the National Internal Security (NIS) division in the Midwest district of the United States. Was at ground zero for the start of the zombie apocalypse but spent considerable time chasing Liam and his friends because he was responsible for killing her fiancé. Finally killed on the riverbank of the Mississippi River when Liam and Victoria fought her just before Zombie Escape begins on day 20.
General John Jasper. Defender of Cairo against two hordes of zombies from Chicago and Indianapolis that arrived at the same time. He initially worked for M. Cantwell until he discovered her goals. She exiled him, but he returned to lead the vigorous final defense of the town of Cairo. He put Grandma Marty in the hands of Chloe Bridger, but died in battle on day 20.
Chloe Bridger. Refugee living in Cairo, IL. Starts a group called “Zombie Killers” that helps defend the town. She becomes friends with J. Jasper and eventually gains his trust enough that he passes Grandma Marty to her for safekeeping. She and Marty are hiding from zombie horde inside Cairo at start of Zombie Escape.
Melissa (Mel) Perkins. Refugee from St. Louis. Arrives on Liam's doorstep on day 4. She has some military background but doesn't talk about it. Becomes the driver of the military-grade MRAP armored truck they commandeer. Last seen helping Liam escape Busch Stadium. Missing in action since day 12.
Phil Ramos. Police officer for the town of Arnold, MO. He helped Liam escape the last bridge out of St. Louis on day 1 and then stayed with him during many of his adventures. Spends all his time with Mel inside the MRAP and stays with her after rescuing Liam from Busch Stadium. Missing in action since day 12.
Douglas Hayes. Immunologist responsible for early delivery of the mutated virus, but later fights to turn it all around. An insider as part of the NIS, he has access to many resources to help Liam and his friends, but he, too, is hunted. Last seen riding in helicopter on day 20 on the way to Cairo, IL, but later declared dead by E. Cantwell.
MRAP. Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected. Six-wheeled armored military truck. Captured and used by Mel and Phil while they helped transport Liam and his family. Last seen in Busch Stadium on day 12.
The Zombies. Each city produces different kinds of zombies. Theories abound on why this is so, but NIS operatives have hinted that it had to do with different environmental conditions in each city, different medical practices for the population, as well as the elements in the water beneath each metropolis. Some zombies jump. Some swim. Some run. A few do all three, and more. Before records were destroyed, one government agency recorded over fifty types of zombies.
Hurry it Along
Day 20 since the sirens ended the world. The bootheel region of Missouri.
Liam and Victoria were on foot and on the run—again—from the horde of infected. The nuclear bomb-sized cloud of dust over the tree line to the north indicated the magnitude of the pursuit. His girlfriend's running shoes ahead of him only created tiny puffs, and he wondered how many zombie feet stomped across the Missouri farmland behind them to create something that large.
“Liam, keep up!” Victoria cried out with concern.
He'd been falling behind for a while. The menacing cloud was one thing, but he'd also begun to absorb the fact his mother had been killed by a zombified version of his father when they both fell in the Mississippi River. Even if he didn't see her get bitten, he felt in his heart she was dead. His usual optimism had been chased down and consumed, just as he was in danger of having done to him if he didn't keep moving.
“You won't lose me
. Not again.” He tried to sound positive, though he felt the opposite.
“Darned tooten' I won't,” Victoria replied.
The landscape didn't help his mood. They were in the middle of a vast piece of farmland not far from where they emerged from the muddy Mississippi. The ground was perfectly flat, and he saw for miles in every direction. The light-colored soil was loose between the endless rows of the small, emerald green plants they trampled, like it had recently been plowed.
They'd been running at a fast jog for several miles, but Victoria wouldn't slow down. After swimming out of the river, he felt refreshed by the cool water, but it didn't take long before the heat and humidity of the afternoon made him hot and sticky. He'd hoped she would voluntarily rest, but he couldn't wait another minute.
“I think I need to stop,” he said with disappointment. For a moment he thought she might think less of him for taking a break, but she wasn't like that. Mostly, he knew it wasn't a good idea to stop when the zombie threat was so close.
She came to a halt and put her arms on her hips as she looked to the next tree line. After breathing several deep breaths while hunched over, she turned to face him. “We can stop, but only for a minute. They're still back there.”
She fell to her knees in between two rows of the mystery crop. He hunkered down in front of her. If he got on his belly he would be invisible to any onlooker. A great proposition if he had the energy to get back up. As it was, he thought he'd have trouble regaining his feet.
“Do you think they're really following us?” he asked.
Her face remained grim as she looked to the horizon from just above the plants. “The dust is getting closer. That's all I know for sure.”
He didn't really expect her to answer otherwise. Elsa Cantwell had said a horde of zombies had been walking from St. Louis, and they had a special ability which made them particularly useful to her. Unlike the other horde attacking Cairo from Chicago and Indianapolis, the ones from St. Louis were stuck on this side of the river, in Missouri. Elsa never revealed what would happen to the zombies once they arrived because he'd killed her thirty minutes ago.
“I'm glad she's dead,” he said between his heavy breathing. “She had to pay for killing my mom ... and dad.” He'd seen his father's grave back at Camp Hope. That forest refuge was the last safe place he and his dad had been together. If Elsa had told the truth, she dug him out of the ground, reanimated him—or maybe he'd become a zombie underground already—and then forced him to attack his mom while he watched. It helped him immensely to think of Elsa as the monster that arranged those events, so her death didn't feel as sickening to him.
“Liam,” Victoria said softly while sliding closer to him. Close enough to put her hand on his arm. “I'm so sorry again about your mom and dad. That was totally awful what Elsa did to them. But look at me--”
He looked into her eyes.
“You did the right thing. You HAD to kill her. She was a murderer, for sure, and I think that was the least of her crimes. When she attacked us at the waterfront, she intended to kill us both. That's called self-defense and that's totally normal.”
She steadied her breath before she could continue. “In fact, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I don't think it matters at this point.” She giggled, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Did you know even your little old grandma killed someone in self-defense recently?”
She meant it as a wild revelation, but his face showed no surprise.
“You knew?” she asked.
“Not until I saw Elsa in the water with that wound to her eye,” he replied. “It looked the same as the crook Grandma shot while I was knocked out on the street that day. If things had happened differently, I might have never known,” he said while testing laughter. “How did you find out?”
“Oh, us girls talk, you know?” She smiled broadly, searching his face for understanding.
“I see how it is.” His heart was broken but he made a best effort to give her a cheerful grin. Deep down, he thought he could wallow in his despair and she wouldn't be critical of him, but they were in the middle of a field with zombies bearing down on them, and that wasn't the time to play the victim.
“Do you see anywhere we can get safe?” he remarked as he lifted his head over the rows. A light green truss bridge was miles to the left of them. Twinkles of sunlight reflected off hundreds of cars parked just short of the bridge, and in the fields next to it. People abandoned them, it appeared, so they could walk into Illinois and try to find safety in Cairo. He thought back to his neighbor's story of people hiding in their cars at roadblocks and bottlenecks on the highways and was ready to suggest they turn that direction to find an open vehicle.
She looked the other way. “There.”
Her finger marked a structure in the distance.
Do they head to the lone farmhouse and move away from the zombies, or risk getting closer to the zombies but have all those cars to search?
He knew what she would say.
2
Before they got up from their hiding spot, he noticed a shirtless man running along a tree line far across the field closer to the bridge than the house. He was conspicuous because he was going toward the approaching dust cloud, rather than away—like a normal person.
“You coming?” She grabbed his arm and pulled him up but seemed to notice he was fixated on the running guy. “See something?”
The runner was unsettling, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Rather than frazzle her nerves further, he kept it to himself.
“Nothing but that gigantic cloud of death,” he said with dry sarcasm, and a smile.
“I know, right? It's huge. I can only imagine how many people are in it.”
He wondered about that. How many people could be in it? Elsa said the horde was pulled to Cairo using some kind of mind experiment being run on those people in the hull of the barge they'd just escaped. It was struck by the non-nuclear ICBM, killing all onboard and tossing him and Victoria from the deck as the explosion took place. If Elsa was telling the truth, they were like human sirens that sucked in the zombies from cities to the north. He saw the hordes infiltrate Cairo with his own eyes. A number he couldn't quantify—maybe millions. A similar number could have come from St. Louis.
If there were millions then no car, farmhouse, or armored tank would be enough to survive them out here in the open. The zombies would surround them and then wait forever for them to come out.
He ran with his doubts almost all the way across the field. The threat from behind was foremost in his mind, but he also saw the farmhouse as another potential trap. All it was lacking was the word, “safe” spray-painted on the front door.
“Hold up a minute,” he said when they were a couple hundred yards away. “When I was in the city by myself I did something dumb and got trapped. It was an innocent-looking building, a lot like this one.” He pointed to the farmhouse. “I'm not ... I'm not sure we should go in there, now that I see it.”
She faced the building and seemed to think on it. “We have to trust someone. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're really after you.” She laughed on it.
“Yeah, well, how many paranoid people do you know who have seen the things we have? Grandma has gotten us into a lot of trouble, you know. I wouldn't be surprised if Elsa herself walked out that front door.” He, too, was laughing, but there was a kernel of truth there. Nothing had been normal since he left Grandma Marty's house. He tried to count the days, but he couldn't do it. He figured they'd been fighting zombies for about three weeks.
“Oh, so this is Grandma's fault?” Her smile was playful.
He sighed, knowing he'd been beaten. “No, of course not. I just mean with Hayes, the National Internal Security a-holes, and all that. You know I don't blame her for all those things. Everything I've seen and done has left me with few people I trust with my life.”
“Am I one of them?” she asked in a sly voice.
“Come on, you know that I trust y
ou, absolutely.”
“All right, then. Trust me when I say we have to get inside the house.” She pointed behind her. “We need food, water, and maybe ten minutes of peace and quiet. Not that I expect any of those things. I'd settle for just one. But we'd get none of those searching the cars because the zombies are too close.”
To make her point, a few leading wisps of dust blew by.
“We should go to the house?” He was being deliberately unhelpful, though in a playful way. He felt the house was dangerous because it was unknown but admitted the time for heading to the parked cars had passed them by. Whatever was coming under the screen of that dust had gotten a lot closer and showed no sign of slowing.
A distant howl rode in on the wind, from the north.
“What are we waiting for,” he jested as he motioned for her to continue keeping the pace.
The little Ruger pistol was uncomfortable in his waistband as he jogged. He'd gone back and picked it up at the river bank after putting Elsa out of his misery. It gave him one last look at the woman who'd given them so much grief-and for such a stupid reason. Whatever threats were ahead, the gun might help. He only had three shells left in the mag which would be about as effective at stopping the zombies as cursing.
Unless we use it to kill ourselves.
He frowned as he ran, disappointed where his mind dragged him. The thought came from a movie about a mysterious mist that he once watched with his dad. The heroes made it through two hours of hell and were only feet away from salvation when they decided, as a group, to commit suicide. It left his dad yelling at the screen at how stupid it was. For him, he didn't feel the anger as much as confusion. He believed he would rather use those bullets on the bad guys-no matter how ineffective-than turn it on his friends. Die fighting, and whatever. But suicide? He'd seen enough of that already.
Not on my watch.
He concentrated on the young woman running ahead. Victoria's figure was, uh, very distracting. She'd been wearing her new jogging shoes, long jeans with fancy stitching on the back pockets, and a black tank top. Everything was soaked with dirty water from their swim in the Mississippi, and her blue and pink shoes and lower pantlegs were covered in dust and mud, making it appear like her legs came right out of the soil. Nonetheless, her shape gave him something to take his mind off his burning lungs and tired legs.
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