But he did have a strange blue piece of metal attached to what remained of his head. It was about three inches long and very thin. It reminded him of the blue thing tangled in the trash man's beard.
“Looks like a tiny arrow,” he said aloud. “What do you make of that, Victoria?”
“Maybe there are miniature zombies, shooting tiny bows,” he giggled like her.
Yeah, that's what she would say.
He was almost ready to pull it out when he noticed another one on the next closest body.
And the one beyond.
And…
2
He scrambled around the room, with his rifle attached to his back for ease-of-movement. Each body had the same blue thing stuck somewhere on the upper body. Many had it near the head. All the little arrows leaned to the front. They'd come from outside the front window. And they were shot after the men were down on the floor.
The drone noise outside returned, and he had a premonition it was looking for him.
He moved quickly and stayed low as he returned to the rear hallway. There he paused to see what would happen next. The miniature helicopter floated by, almost comically, from his perspective. It looked lost as it moved slowly from one broken pane of glass on the left to the far side of the store on the right.
But as it drifted off stage, a new player arrived. He couldn't tell if it was another drone, but a boxy metallic object came into view on the far right of the street. It guided itself to the very center of the broken windows, then paused.
An apparatus on top swiveled rapidly in his direction, and he had half a second to duck.
The shot impacted against the rear wall, behind where his upper body was a moment earlier.
On the floor, he fast crawled for the door downstairs. The moans and cries of the zombies cheered him on.
Another hole appeared in the wall to his left, just above his drooped head. No doubt who was the target.
Three shots came in rapid fire as he covered the final ten feet. The last one jolted him, and he felt the splash of blood on his back. With a great burst of energy, he threw himself into the stairwell and tumbled down the steps, collapsing into the woman. He hit her with such force they both tumbled to the hard basement floor.
He knocked himself good on the way down but didn't lose consciousness. The liquid on his back dripped to the floor, and he was relieved to see it was only his water from his backpack. The bullet must have passed through it...
The excitement of the fall had redoubled the noise of the zombies in the cages, and the crying of the woman—he couldn't tell if she was injured—added to the mayhem of the moment. He pulled out his light, though he could see well enough from the upstairs doorway, which remained open.
“Are you—” he started to say. But movement at the top caught his eye. Something that looked like a small tank on two little treads had maneuvered itself close to the doorway. It was just the right width to fit in the hallway, but it seemed to have problems getting closer to the edge of the steps. The treads rotated on the door frame. The gun on top was angled down.
He pulled the woman away from the bottom step, though she didn't want to come willingly. There was nowhere to go that didn't involve nearing the zombies in the room.
A crack from up the steps. He peeked around the corner as he pulled her. The door was tearing from its hinges. The toy tank seemed angry as the treads made progress chunking through the wood on each side.
“We have to hurry,” he shouted. Looking down, he doubted the woman heard him because she didn't pick up the pace. He felt the wall, intending to drag her low, as he'd come through the first time. They'd hole up at the end of the little service walkway, where he'd dropped into this nightmare.
He'd only gotten her a short way when the wooden door banged a few times on its way down the steps, then it bounced and slid into the open enclosure across from the steps. A mechanical whine followed.
He ignored the reaching hands from the bowed out cage. The woman finally caught on that she had to move fast. Or she just did whatever she was told. In any case, she was there when he cleared the damaged cage, and he stood up and ran the last few yards to the end of the corridor.
At the end he made a snap decision. He pulled off his rifle, which sent the woman to the ground again. But he aimed it at the zombies in the first cage. With the aid of his light to aim, he managed to put three of them down in quick succession...he was working on shooting the lock when the weapons platform poked out of the stairwell. Its gun swiveled to the far side of the room, giving him an extra few seconds to blow out the lock.
“Quick, get inside,” he shouted as the cage swung open. And again he doubted the woman heard him.
The gun began to swing to his side, so he stepped into the enclosure. The woman stayed on the floor. She pushed herself into the deepest blackness of the corner of the hallway...directly below where he'd come in.
He flicked off his light, to give them both a chance.
The drone now had a light on top, pointing where its gun aimed.
The zombies in all the cages became apoplectic with all the activity just out of their reach. Liam knew, or was pretty sure, the tank was going to come down the corridor.
Like it's tracking me.
That stirred his memory.
The small drone had come before the tank, upstairs. But the small helicopter-like drone had also passed above him before he met the bums in the park.
The tank had shot his backpack.
While kneeling among the bodies of the three zombies, he pulled off his backpack and set it on the backs of one of the dead creatures. Yes, it had been wrecked by the gun blast—an entry hole was on one side, and the exit was on the other. But there, as he pretty much expected, was a little wire arrow. Only his was red.
He kicked his backpack into the corner, nearest the zombies in the next cage. They didn't notice that at all, and instead continued to reach for him through the metal cage links. Blood dripped from their ruined arms. He moved himself to the far corner, up against the back wall.
A loud buzzing sound came from the ground-based drone.
Then, gunfire.
Among all the bodies, it wasn't hard to play dead.
3
The drone released one shot after another. He got as low as he could on the floor, though with bullets in the air he felt as if he were standing.
But it wasn't shooting at him.
The volume of the zombies was cut in half after thirty seconds. The drone's tread scraped the bent cage but got by. Then the shots got closer. Each volley unleashed a splash of blood into his cage.
After four or five blasts, he was entirely covered with blood and gore. The strange angles of the light from the drone made all the movement and blood more chaotic.
The next shot took down the zombie in the cage directly next to his. She slumped but remained on her feet, as her arms were already in the fencing. She hung there, looking at him.
Another splash of blood.
He covered his mouth to keep silent while pushing his face into the corner, willing himself to become small and invisible.
The light grew brighter as the tank trundled along, ever closer. His was last in line.
The other two zombies pulled themselves from the fence to attack the light, but they were felled in seconds by the mechanical monster. Two more sprays of blood washed over him, and he shut his eyelids—always worried blood would get him through the eyes.
The room fell silent, save the whine of the engine and the treads of the tank creaking on the concrete. It was right outside the cage.
Grandma, please pray for me.
He thought about praying for himself, but she always talked about how she would pray for others, and never herself. That stuck with him, he was surprised to realize.
The sound of the engine stopped, and the gun erupted close by. He waited for his head to detach from his body...
He counted to ten.
The woman was crying.
He wondered if the machine could sense living people or just zombies.
He rattled off another ten count.
The machine started to back up. It had the familiar beeping of a commercial truck reversing itself on a street. A minute later the engine hum grew with the sound of treads on the stairs. It took a long minute for it to get to the top, but when the tracks rumbled over the wooden floor above he knew it had indeed left the basement.
Soon, the sounds stopped. He hoped that meant it had left the building, though he couldn't discount the notion it was parked upstairs waiting for him to show himself.
The woman's weeping became tired and erratic like she'd cried herself out. He figured if her crying hadn't attracted the eye of the tank, he was probably OK to open his own eyes and see what had become of the place.
With a click, he turned on the light.
He put his hand over his mouth to keep from yelping in shock. The zombies had been put down with ruthless precision by the thing's gun. It had been programmed to aim for the head—there was no question of that. Each of the zombies had been messily ruined up top. Every square inch of all the nearby cages was doused with the sickening blackness of blood. He felt it on himself but tried to ignore it. He pulled at the material of the front of his shirt and felt the wetness stuck to his chest.
The light fell near the woman, who was softly whimpering in her corner. She was also splashed with blood, though it wasn't as thick on her.
Finally, he took another look at his backpack. It had been shot twice now, and the material was ravaged. It, too, was soaked in water and blood. He rooted around and was surprised the magazine was still intact, as was a pocketknife. His energy bars and water bottles were ruined. One of the straps was also shredded, though he was able to heft it on his back with the remaining one. He felt compelled to keep it, as it had been given to him by Travis. A man he wanted to return the pack to, someday.
“Are you all right,” he gently asked.
“Is this Hell?”
“What? No. This is St. Louis.” He found it disturbing, but not unsurprising, given what had happened in the basement, both before and after he arrived.
“I'm dead. These—things—are dead. We're all dead,” she said in a hurried cadence.
“No, we're alive. You're going to make it. That, um, drone...it only targets these things.” He pulled out the red arrow from his pack and showed it to her, as if it made total sense.
He pulled off his shirt and offered it to her. “Um, sorry it's wet, but you can use this to cover yourself up. I'm sorry I couldn't help you sooner. The men upstairs are all dead. You're safe.”
He was reminded of his mom's words. Telling someone they were safe while zombies walked the streets was an outright lie. She'd known that. He knew that. But saying it made him feel better, and he was sure it made her feel better. Her whimpering slowed to nothing, and she began to wring out the blood from his one-sleeved T-shirt.
While they waited, he didn't know how to talk to her without addressing the elephant in the room. Sometimes asking survivors to tell their story helped relieve tension, but he figured this scenario would be the complete opposite. So he stayed in safer territory.
“What did you do before the zombies?”
The woman was only wearing underwear. Liam's shirt was a bit large on her, but she didn't complain. Once it was on, she stood up and moved into the enclosure with him.
“You ever hear of Midnight Foxes?”
Her voice was distinctively southern, now that he could hear it.
4
“I'm originally from Jacksonville, Florida, but I've been living in Nashville, Tennessee on account of the recording studio. I'm the lead singer for Midnight Foxes.”
Liam showed no recognition.
“Midnight Foxes? You've never heard of us?”
“I listen to classic rock, mostly.”
“Oh,” she said with a touch of rejection. “Well, we're a country band. Three multi-talented ladies with a string of gold records behind us. Nothing? You really haven't heard of us.”
“Ma'am, I didn't even know there was a Patriot Snowball when it was happening.”
“Wow. You must live in a dungeon.” After she said it, she looked at her current locale. She let out a little whimper. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”
“No, it's fine. I was big into video games...didn't pay attention to the news. I missed a lot.”
“We were trying to drive back from touring in Colorado when the world went south. We gave a ride to our roadies and PR people, as well. Our tour bus ran out of gas. We watched as it was attacked and turned over by a mob. Our driver was killed, but the rest of our group was herded down here...by those men.”
She choked on a sob. “They offed Mick—our bass guitarist—outright. But they kept us girls...”
He didn't sweep his light over the cages, but he allowed an inkling of understanding to seep into his brain. All the caged zombies had been women. None of them had much in the way of intact clothing. The inference was still too much for him. The thought of his mother, or Victoria, in someplace like this...
I have to get back to her.
He didn't want to continue to press her for answers, but...
“How did they all become zombies?”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“What's your name?”
“Liam.”
“Hi, Liam. I'm Denise. Well, my stage name is Monique, but I guess that name is dead, now. You haven't heard of me, anyhow.” She laughed a sad laugh. “Us girls were taken upstairs. We'd get some food and water, and allowed to clean ourselves up a little, but then...”
He looked at her expectantly, but eventually he figured out what she was avoiding.
She went on. “Sometimes others came through the trapdoor. Men would be shot on sight. Women would be tossed in the cages. Sometimes that meant other women were taken out, to make room. That went on for a month, it seems...”
“This is day twenty since the sirens.”
“Oh. It feels like forever. Well, one day—not sure how many days ago—one of the new girls on the far end of the cages started acting funny. We could all see it happen. When we figured out she was infected, we all screamed for our lives...but no one heard us. She converted the other two in her cage, and then the disease spread down the cages day after day. When it got into the one next to mine, me and two women I didn't know started to throw ourselves at the front door and we managed to bend the lock. They built these things for dogs, not humans.”
She paused, thinking.
“But the real dogs were upstairs. My two friends ran up there to break out.”
She teared up and spoke with reverent tones. “They shot them in the head and tossed them back down the steps. I was so scared I was next...”
She sniffled. “When nothing happened, I moved them into the last cage to get the bodies away from me, but there was nowhere for me to go that was safe, so I returned to the steps. At least I couldn't see any of those sick women.”
“And the men never came down to check on you?”
“Naw. I think they infected us. Put us out of our misery. They argued constantly about money and drugs and turf while we were...up there.”
It was horrible to contemplate.
“Are you...infected?”
“Kid, I'm having a real bad day,” she said with a spark of defiance, “what the ever hell makes you think I care if I'm infected, now?”
Deep down, he wanted to express his intention to save her. She'd been through so much, he felt it was his duty to bring her to some form of safety. Make it all worthwhile. But the Zombie Apocalypse didn't work like that. Not anymore. There were no happy endings, as far as he could tell.
The best he could do was get her to temporary safety, with the expectation the place would fall apart soon after that. The whole town was in danger of becoming one big war zone, if the patriots really intended to make a stand
here. If he were in charge, he would take the patriots to some other city. A city not on the priority list for the remaining all-powerful government forces, led by the National Internal Security agents. That seemed like a solid strategy to him, though he freely admitted military strategy wasn't his thing.
“I'm trying to get back to my girlfriend. You're welcome to come with me. If you aren't infected.”
She studied him for a few seconds. “You may be the person I'd least suspect was in this shit hole for a girl. She must be pretty special.”
As he collected his backpack, he nodded. “Oh, she is. But I'm not out here because of her. I'm out here because of my mom. She took me somewhere I didn't want to be, and now I'm trying to fix that mistake.”
“Sounds complicated. I'll shut up, now.”
“No, it's OK. And not that complicated. I found someone in this mess that I never want to be separated from again. Zombies aren't going to stop me. Toy tanks aren't going to stop me. Nothing on Earth is going to stop me from getting back to her.”
“Wow, good. I want to stick with you.” After a pause, “Do you have a gun for me?”
He wasn't sure she was ready for a gun, given how shaky and weak she appeared. Though it wasn't his place to tell her what she could and couldn't do.
“The men upstairs had guns on their bodies. We should both grab what we can, and then get out of here.”
That placated her. He ignored all the bodies in the cages as they walked for the stairwell. The cage that had been bowed outward had been pushed back in by the tank drone. He was unwilling to look at the zombie remains, though he sensed some were still hanging by their arms.
The wooden steps had gouges torn from each riser where the mini tank had crept down and back up the stairs. It had been dripping with blood, now that he could see the steps in the light. The same blood that splashed him had also covered the chassis of the single-minded killer robot.
Which Apocalypse am I in?
Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 Page 4