His leg muscles ached from the hard run away from the river, and just thinking about the pursuit made his heart rate spike. But no matter how exhausted he'd become from days and days of chaos, sleeping soundly on the open roof was pretty much impossible for him.
And yet the group of girls he was with all seemed to be out cold. Even Victoria was curled up next to him and her regular breathing suggested she was at peace for once.
He felt some relief at waking up when he did. There was more than enough running and hiding in his daytime life, he didn't need more of it in his sleeping time.
As he sat up and looked into the dull glare of light still coming from near Cairo, he wiped his hand over his face to erase his sleep and reflect on what he'd been dreaming about.
Running for my life.
Always running, yes, but tonight he realized he was chasing someone in his dream, rather than running away from zombies.
He peered into the darkness. There was heavy cloud cover and the aura of light from the faraway town barely made it to the farm, but there was enough to see the tree line at the distant edge of the fields. In his dream, he'd been standing in those trees while looking at the house. Not surprising when he thought about how many zombies were out there in the darkness at that moment.
Liam shivered again. An odd feeling swept over him and he immediately considered bumping Victoria to wake her up. She would then say he's crazy for being scared of the dark, they'd both have a laugh, and he could then get back to sleep.
He almost did prod his girlfriend, but her breathing was unusually calm at that moment. Most times while Victoria napped, her eyes fluttered, and her breathing was ragged and strained, as if also on the run in her nightmares. Somehow, she was getting good sleep on the hard roof, and he wasn't going to ruin that for her.
In the end, he let her be. Grandma always said to let sleeping dogs lie. No, that wasn't the right thing. Victoria wouldn't like that comparison.
“Don't wake a sleeping baby,” he heard his mom's voice advise.
He figured Victoria would prefer that a lot more, but he still didn't wake her.
He stretched his legs to work out some of the lactic acid and constantly shifted around because the shingles made it feel like he sat on concrete. Susan and Leah slept less peacefully than Victoria, but their breathing suggested they were also catching some z's. His eyes fell on Victoria again, then he looked up the slope of the roof, then at the dark sky. It took him several minutes to admit he didn't want to look back to the oily black tree line.
Over the past three weeks he'd come to appreciate he lived in a virtual surveillance state. Something so complicated and complete, even his paranoid dad wouldn't have believed it. Drones flew and rolled across the terrain seeking him out. He'd been tagged with numerous tracking darts and probably carried traces of them with him even now. And if that wasn't enough, he'd been made aware that he'd been alternately tracked by US Marines, the Air Force, and the NIS operatives who'd never stopped looking for him.
Gee, I wonder why I'm dreaming about running?
He chuckled at the futility of it all. It was beginning to look like being caught by someone was his fate.
The longer he sat there, the more convinced he was that someone was in the darkness at that moment watching him. The hair on his neck stood on end and he shivered uncontrollably for a couple of seconds. This time he had to really fight the urge to wake up his friend.
Liam lay himself back onto the roof and put his arms behind his head as he looked up into the dark sky. There were no visible stars above because of the clouds, but just thinking about them reminded him of Grandma's happy place with the waterfall and computer. Al said he, Victoria, and Grandma were bonded as a triad because they'd shared key emotional markers in their memories. It was going to help them unlock the computer in Colorado, or whatever it was. He still wasn't sure what to make of that mystical world of the Quantum Computer other than he was sure the memories they'd shared with each other were real. Grandma and Victoria both confirmed them in real life and he shared his own powerful memory of his first kiss with Victoria.
A smile washed over his face at that memory and he relaxed a bit as he savored it. He wet his lips involuntarily as he imagined her kissing him and he snickered at the thought of waking her now, so he could kiss her again. It was a fun diversion for a few minutes, but if he didn't wake her because he was scared, he sure as hell wasn't going to wake her to steal a smooch. Maybe someday when that fear of chasing and running wasn't so overpowering and distracting he would wake her in the most pleasant way possible, but if her dreams were anything like his he'd be shoved off the roof before she even woke up.
The apocalypse really sucks.
His imagination went to work rebuilding every detail of that one moment with Victoria during their escape from the city where they weren't under the threat of death. Where a kiss wasn't just possible, but appropriate with the new girl he'd brought with him out of the dying metropolis. His mind focused on the black dress she had worn, her long brown hair, and her smooth, feminine skin.
It was enough to almost calm him to sleep.
When something brushed against his hair, he thought it was Victoria waking up because she'd somehow caught his thoughts and decided to make good on his desire to kiss her.
Another touch, but against his ear this time.
Please. Please. Please.
He kept his heavy eyes closed to see if she'd wake him. If Victoria wanted to kiss him as bad as he wanted to return it, and if that's what she did in the next ten seconds, he was going to dance up and down the roof no matter how much noise it would make.
Victoria, I'm already awake.
He spoke inside his head, sure she could hear him as they had done before inside the Quantum computer.
He heard no reply, but the pressure on his neck suggested she was close. Part of him wanted to spring “awake” and jump into a kiss, but he decided to play his part until the end.
“Ouch,” he blurted out into the silence. He regretted breaking the magic, but she'd actually hurt him when she pinched his neck.
He sat up a little and shifted so he could face her while supporting his head with one arm.
“I didn't know you'd be so rough--” he said to the shape lying next to him.
She didn't reply.
“Victoria?” He asked it in a quiet voice, but his apoco-senses tingled because something wasn't right.
Unsure if the night and his tired brain were playing tricks on him, he slapped his cheeks a few times to bring himself to full alert.
“Victoria,” he said a bit louder.
Still, she didn't stir.
He reached for her but bumped into something else that recoiled at his touch.
“Oh, shit,” he said softly while sliding sideways away from it, but then he calmed back down because he knew what it was.
“Victoria, wake up. There are animals in our food,” he said in a forceful way. His years in Boy Scouts had given him a lot of experience dealing with nocturnal creatures seeking food in his campsite, and he and the girls had been careless opening the treasure trove of canned goods and other wonders they'd brought up from the pantry.
He shoved her a bit, so she knew he meant business.
Something bit his hand as he touched her. There was pressure, but it didn't break skin. A lot like whatever pinched his neck.
“Ok, this is too weird.”
“What's happening?” Victoria said in a froggy voice as she woke up.
He experienced a little regret. She'd been asleep the whole time, so this was never going to be that wonderful dream of her waking him up. No matter how many squirrels or raccoons infested their food, it hurt more that he missed an opportunity to spend a quiet moment with his girl.
He reached for his flashlight, resigned to the fact some of the food would be ruined.
Please don't be a racoon.
Squirrels and chipmunks were the least of the nuisance animals because they wou
ld run at the light, but some raccoons put up a fight for their newfound dinners and they usually brought all their friends. It would be a challenge to chase them off the roof.
He clicked on the light and shined it toward Victoria.
The small white shape crawled between them and glowed with an almost supernatural whiteness under the harshness of the high-powered flashlight.
None of his camping merit badges could have prepared him for this intruder.
It was a baby.
2
His first instinct was to scream because that's what normal people did in the face of such things, but the sight of the tiny, half-charred, premature creature was more than his mind could handle at that moment. However, when he swept the light over the still-groggy Victoria and the young girls on her far side, it became clear screaming was probably the right thing to do.
“Get up!” he shouted in a scream-like voice.
He hopped into a crouch, danced around the baby, and pulled at Victoria to get her off her back.
“Oh, good God, you scared me,” she replied. “What is it?”
He shined the light onto the threat. “That!”
Victoria screamed and scrambled away from the baby like it was on fire. He held her tight, so she didn't fall off the roof.
“Zombie babies,” he blurted. He pointed the light at the one closest to him, but he shifted the light again and tried not to jump out of his sneakers at how many of the little zombies were up there with them.
“Get off me!” Leah cried out.
There had to be two dozen of the little monsters and some were in the nooks and crannies of Leah and Susan's clothing, like they wanted to snuggle up with the sleepers. It might have been cute if their condition and very existence wasn't so horrible.
Victoria brushed at her hair and a chipmunk-sized preemie tumbled out. She danced from foot to foot as if she didn't want to step on the misshapen baby zombie as it hit the roof and rolled a few times.
Everyone made it to their feet and the two daughters swiped at their clothing to clear out the passengers.
“Eww. Eww. Eww!” Susan shouted as she flailed wildly at her shirt and backed herself closer to the edge of the roof.
“Whoa!” Liam grabbed her arm a split-second before she went over.
The young girl didn't even say thanks or acknowledge what just happened. Instead, she ran for her older sister, still screaming like mad.
“Back inside,” he ordered. “Grab what you can of the supplies.”
Victoria snapped on a second flashlight, and was first to the window, but she didn't go inside.
He felt a crunch under his foot, but he refused to shine his light down there to see what it was. Better to ignore the hideous truth.
“Liam,” Victoria gushed with emotion. “I saw those things down under that blue tarp. The whole backyard garden was full of them.”
“How did they get up here? No, no time for that. Just get us out of here.” He practically pushed her into the window, but she resisted once she put some light in that direction.
“Please go inside,” he said with as much calm as he could summon.
“Liam. Look.” Victoria angled her light and looked inside the bedroom where he'd come in so long ago.
The preemies came from a vent on the floor, and several of them clawed their way out as he watched. Others formed a line of tiny walking zombies as they made their way to the window. One of them reached the low sill and hopped itself up like something out of a cartoon.
Or a horror movie.
“This is insane,” he said as he watched the baby stand erect inches from his light.
It was stark naked, but its skin had been torched during the fireball he and Sabella had created, making it impossible to tell the sex of the ghoulish figure. It had the wonkish proportions of a baby, but it stood like it had practiced walking for a long time. The fire had taken its eyes and the toothless mouth hung open in a voiceless scream.
He shivered at the sight of the monster and made no effort to hide his feeling from the others.
“I think my fear response is broken,” he said with a measured chuckle. “How is this happening? I'm so scared right now I can't look away.”
“What do we do?” Susan wailed.
“Yeah, what do we do?” Leah echoed while sounding properly frightened.
Victoria put her hand on his and that snapped him out of it. He tore his eyes away from the cold, dead baby zombie.
“The other window,” he said as if remembering it existed. “We can escape that way.”
He pushed the baby back into the room without actually looking at it, then he grabbed the window and slid it down to shut it. Unless they were prone to great violence he didn't think they could get back through the sealed double-pane glass.
“We can't stay up here,” Victoria said as they all shuffled toward the other window facing the front of the house, “but if those creepy zombies are everywhere inside I think I'd rather jump off the roof.”
Sabella's daughters openly wept as they passed more of the tiny shapes writhing around on the shingles. Some tried to stand up and find the living people so close to them. Others fast-crawled like it was an easier mode of transport for them. One even cried like it was a real, living baby. That freaked him out the most.
Even knowing they were zombies didn't help him kick them out of his way. He couldn't bring himself to hurt the little things, and no one else seemed willing to harm them, either.
“Please don't be in there,” he said when he reached the second window.
He set his bag of supplies next to the dormer and shined his light inside, praying there were no little ones scurrying about.
After a few seconds, he shut off his light, stepped back from the window, and let out a heavy sigh.
“What is it? Can we go?” Victoria plopped her bag of canned goods next to his.
“We just can't win,” he said in a dejected voice.
“What is it? Are they in there?” Victoria strained to see around him with her light.
“No, not babies, but there is a huge dead man sitting on the mattress,” he replied.
The girls' weeping got even louder, and he knew why.
Their torturer blocked the path to freedom.
3
While fretting over a solution, a vehicle's engine caught his attention from out in the darkness. A pair of headlights turned into the mile-long gravel driveway leading up to the farmhouse.
He turned to Victoria. “Rescue?”
She shrugged, then added, “Bad guys coming back for revenge?”
Liam chuckled to alleviate his fear. “Since when are you the downer?”
“It must be a side effect of waking up with little, uh, zombies crawling all over me. I want to go back and jump in that filthy river to wash away the feeling of those little hands.”
“Ah, yeah, I see your point.” He almost went on about how that first one tricked him into thinking she'd kissed him but decided to never speak of it to anyone.
If they had teeth, that fake kiss would have killed me.
That brought him back to the moment. No matter who was driving up, it was a way out. Even though most of the zombies had walked toward the river, and away from the house, some still shuffled their feet on the rocky parking area below. To get to the car they had to get off the roof. To do that, they had to face the baby zombies in one room or Wilder's huge plague-stricken body in the other.
Victoria had the small shotgun with plenty of ammo, so they could reasonably enter either room and kill whatever was inside, but it was revolting to think of shooting the preemie zombies no matter what they were now.
“We'll go through Wilder's room,” he said flatly. He could almost sense the reluctance of the girls, but luckily Victoria didn't share their sense of misfortune.
“I'm on it.” Victoria didn't even try to open the window. She smashed the glass with the butt of her wooden shotgun and then hopped through.
“After you,
” he said, quite impressed at her initiative.
Liam watched as she crouched through the window and stepped down. He couldn't help but notice the bling on the back pockets of her jeans because the tiny stones reflected in the rays of his flashlight.
A few seconds went by before the shotgun went off inside the room. Little Susan smashed her hands over her ears because of the noise.
“It's all right,” he said to the girl even if he wasn't sure that was true.
Victoria's flashlight beam flitted from wall to wall and wouldn't focus on any one thing, but there was lots of movement. He waved his light inside to try to figure out what was happening.
“You need help?” he asked as he put one foot in the window. There was no doubt he would go in there and help his girlfriend, but she was the one with the gun and he didn't want to get in her way.
She ran up to him screaming, but she wasn't alone.
Wilder had somehow grabbed Victoria and had her in a bear hug as they headed right for the window frame.
“Help!” Victoria yelped a fraction of a second before impact.
“Aw crap!” he responded as he jumped away from the window. It looked like they were both going to come barreling out of the rectangular frame, but Wilder's shoulder impacted the side with a crack. The two of them bounced and went back inside the room.
Liam's eyes double-blinked as he tried to understand her situation.
“Liam,” Victoria cried out in a winded voice.
The big man had Victoria and her shotgun trapped in his arms. It was like he snapped her off the ground and carried her around like his toy. Given his evil intents as a living person, Liam wondered if that made him an even worse specimen as a zombie. He thought of a zombie book that was based around the Rapture. Good people went on living normally, but bad people's souls were destroyed, and their bodies morphed into zombies. Naturally, there were far more zombies than those left behind.
He tried to use zombie books to give him hints on how to handle them in real life, but that moment of reflection offered him no advice. He figured the only way to help his girlfriend was to get inside the bear cage and do what he could. Wilder was now a mortal danger, whether he'd been evil or not.
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