Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  He was left to tend to the growing problem he had created.

  One of the zombies made it partially onto the deck by grabbing one of the chains securing the tractor-trailer. Another then used his friend as a crude stepping-stone. He was just starting to right himself to stand up when Liam shot him in the head. He rolled back off the train car, onto the pile.

  If I can't shoot them, what can I do? Yell at them?

  The zombie holding the chain seemed—somehow—to know he was providing a service to his fellows. Either by design or by accident, the zombie man shifted while holding the chain but couldn't haul himself up completely. That left him half up and half down—the others used his body to shimmy up like he was a piece of climbing gear.

  Liam shot the chain-holder in the face and the man slithered back down, but not very far.

  The reports of gunshots remained loud in his ears. One of the men previously shooting the front row was doing it again. Liam looked at him in the flashes of gunfire—and was distraught to see the man's eyes had a glint in them. Was he suicidal? Was he purposefully making the pile larger?

  “Hey! Stop shooting those standing by the car!”

  The man did not stop until he was out of ammo again. He racked his shotgun, pulled the trigger without discharging a round, then gave the weapon a funny look.

  Liam walked in front of him as he reloaded. “Hey, remember, you can't shoot the close ones. You're making a pile of bodies for the others to use.”

  “I don't care. We have to kill them all!”

  The man pushed him out of the way and took a step forward. Liam nearly lost his balance as he danced precariously along the edge but grabbed the chain and steadied himself. Hands smacked his shoes. They were too close.

  He could have easily pushed me to my death just now.

  He flopped on the ground under the trailer to take stock of himself. His panic rose and for a moment the shakes returned.

  Two seconds is all it would have taken. Bam! Dead.

  Liam inhaled deeply a few times to regain his composure.

  The loud, regular banging sound began at the front of the train again, making its way to the back.

  He watched the nutter who had almost killed him. The man dodged reaching hands to line up more shots on the nearby zombies, but two hands snagged his legs and he screamed in surprise. Using the legs for leverage, a zombie pulled himself up and took a bloody bite of bare calf. Liam hesitated for a few moments, then realized he had to help, but barely made it to his feet before disaster struck.

  The man shot wildly, hitting the one that bit him but not much else. He kicked to shake its teeth off his leg, and he lost his balance just as the banging sound reached the last flatcar. The sudden jerk of the now-moving train was too much. The doomed man tipped sideways and fell directly on top of the unbalanced pile of infected still working their way up. The whole stack crumpled under his weight as the flatcar rolled away. He screamed for many minutes as the train clanked up the tracks.

  Each desperate shout reminded Liam, It could have been me. Lose yourself for a second and it could get people killed. Just that fast.

  I won't forget that lesson, sir.

  3

  As the train rambled along again, the zombies dropped back into the night. Marty remained at her station, perched near the wheel of the trailer—leaning back to get as comfortable as the situation would allow.

  She saw everything that happened with Liam and the pile up of dead, and she saw what happened to the poor man who fell over the side. She grasped her rosary—currently it was around her neck for safekeeping—and said a prayer for the man. His screams had been heartbreaking as they pulled away.

  Liam had gone to the back of the train and sat away from everyone else, his head down as if he was lost in thought—or praying.

  Victoria used the opportunity to reload and then she sat down next to her.

  “I thought we were goners there. Those zombies were almost up here with us.”

  “You are right, my dear. I think that surprised us all.”

  “I saw Liam go to the back. Do you think he's OK?”

  She chewed on that question. How well was Liam taking the end of the world? She'd always seen him as a bright boy, but somewhat socially awkward. Perhaps not unusual for a kid his age and certainly reminiscent of his dad—her grandson. He was also a shy young man, who only blossomed after some time in college. Maybe her progeny needed to get a broader perspective on life before they began to understand their role in it? Or maybe it just took the right woman.

  She gave Victoria an approving look.

  “Liam will be fine. He just has a lot to process. We all do. So many things have changed, even in this short time. I think his biggest problem is that he feels responsible for me. Not that I blame him, I'm just a frail old lady after all—”

  Victoria tried to interrupt and beg her off that line of thinking, but she allowed none of it.

  “No, no, it's OK. I can be honest about myself. He feels like he has to take care of me now that his father isn't around, and my nurse was taken by this plague. It's natural that a young man with his character would feel that way.”

  Victoria nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but she still wouldn’t allow it.

  Marty continued. “I want to share something with you. Woman to woman. I hope this isn’t too forward. Liam is the type of young man that would do anything to save someone he loves. He may not be able to distinguish between real love and infatuation as well as an older man, but you've surely seen flashes of his selflessness already. I'm asking you to ensure Liam doesn't do anything too heroic if it looks like I'm not going to make it. Again, I'm honest with myself—I don't have that long left, no matter how this whole affair plays out. He does. You do.”

  Victoria’s lips were pressed tight.

  “Liam thinks I'm pretty helpless these days, and I guess I can only blame myself. I've come to rely heavily on my nurse for many things I once could do on my own. Maybe I let her do more than I should, merely because I've gotten lazy in my recent years. But I'm going to tell you a little secret that I haven't told anyone.”

  Victoria leaned in. Marty wore a conspiratorial smile on her face as if she were enjoying the moment.

  “The other day, Liam got beat up by a bad man trying to rob us. Liam and his impatience to save me led him to a bad decision. The man pulled Liam out of our car and was getting ready to hurt him. Kill him, I think.”

  “He told me something about that. He said some good Samaritan must have come along just in time, shot the man who was assaulting the two of you and then left while Liam was still unconscious.”

  She laughed. “Well, I didn't tell him what really happened. I used his other gun—the one you have now—to shoot that man. I fired three times. The robber never knew what hit him. It was the first time I ever murdered someone—” She knew that wasn't an accurate statement. She smacked her lips as she thought of the right phrase. It wasn't murder to kill in self-defense. “It was the first time I killed someone. It was very disturbing to take a life.”

  Forgive me Lord. I was happy to save Liam, not happy to kill that man.

  Victoria let out a quiet whistle; she was impressed.

  “I don't have much strength left in me, but Liam's dad fixed those guns so even a weakling like me could fire them. I just set the barrel on the frame of the car door, aimed, and let 'er rip like I did all those years ago. It wasn't hard at all.”

  Her voice turned serious. “The crook fell down but crawled behind the car. Even with the gun, I was scared. The hardest part was that I had no strength to get out and tend to Liam. I let him lay there on the ground. Out cold. Time went by and I couldn't hold the gun anymore, and I figured the crook was dead, so I put it back in the backpack, and fell asleep. I have no idea how long we were both out. He came to at some point. Climbed back in. And away we went. Liam was none the wiser about what I'd done.”

  “Why didn't you tell him? Wouldn't he be proud of you?”<
br />
  “I go back and forth. I guess I feel, at this point, I'm old enough I don't want him to get ideas about doing crazy things to save me because he sees me as some heroic granny.”

  “Well, you are pretty heroic!”

  “This,” she swept her arms to signify she was talking about the world at large, “isn't about heroics. It's about carefully thinking how to survive. Nothing is going to be easy ever again. Security. Food. Shelter. You can't just run around the world shooting guns and being heroic. Eventually, it's going to catch you. They,” she pointed off into the distance behind the train, “will catch you.”

  She waited a long time again before sharing her last piece of advice. “I didn't tell him I shot that man because Liam won't survive this world if he thinks there will always be someone there to take care of him.” She said it in a most serious tone but ended on a lighter note. “Even if there is.” She turned and gave Victoria her trademark wink.

  As the train continued along the tracks, the sun started to make its presence known, though it was still below the horizon. They were able to see the graffiti-covered factories and industrial barge facilities on the right-of-way down the west bank of the Mississippi River.

  Both of them saw Liam sitting at the very rear of the platform, looking back toward downtown.

  “I hope this isn't too much of an intrusion, but I'm old and don't have time for subtlety anymore.” She chuckled at that.

  “Liam is quite taken with you. I imagine you’ve figured that out. You are very pretty, of course, and you have a good heart. I have my reasons for liking you.” She reached out and touched Victoria’s arm. “Any boy his age would find you quite the catch. Usually, I wouldn't even think of saying this, but times are not normal by any stretch of the imagination.”

  “Amen,” Victoria replied in a soft voice.

  “I sincerely hope you and Liam become good friends, and that you'll be in his life a long time. But, while I'm still around, please know that if Liam is ever forced to make a choice between saving you or saving me, I'm going to make sure he picks you. Do you understand what I'm saying, my dear?”

  Victoria paused, slowly nodded, then added, “Thank you. Truly. We have been through so much already. Romance isn't really on my mind right now. Maybe if we get somewhere safe where I can think about more than zombies, looters, or the plague, we can talk about the future. We just have to make sure Liam never gets put into that position where he has to choose. I want us all to survive and be happy.”

  “So do I, dear. So do I.”

  But Marty had laid it down. And now that she had, she couldn't help but wonder if she had the strength to make good on the implications of her statement. She always came back to suicide. Her religion forbade killing oneself; it was considered a major sin. But if the choice came down to saving herself or saving Liam and Victoria by sacrificing herself, she believed God would understand her motives.

  Dear Lord. Please help Liam and Victoria survive this plague.

  She studied Liam and wondered what he was thinking. Far behind, shapes shambled in the morning shadows.

  Will the zombies follow us?

  Sunrise on day four was minutes away.

  Chapter 16: The Tenth Circle of Hell

  Liam sat and stared behind the train over the next few miles of track as the sun edged up to the horizon. They departed the warehouse district and moved into a more residential area of apartment buildings and small houses. It was still urban St. Louis, but there were now more trees and less human presence, including zombies, along the rail route next to the river.

  Almost without thinking, he slid his phone out to check network status. The soft glow of the screen gave him no comfort because it was still unable to get a signal, so he shoved it away again.

  Deep and serious thoughts crowded his mind and he was heavy with worry about what would happen next, but when the first rays of the sunshine hit the train, a female voice cried out in song.

  “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light … ”

  The woman’s voice was beautiful, but Liam wasn’t able to see her because she was on a different train car. Her voice resonated over the noisy engine and echoed off a low, rocky cliff on his left, and the sleepy, brown river on his right.

  “…bombs bursting in air … ”

  A few others joined in, and soon there was a chorus fitting of a baseball game.

  The song reached it’s crescendo and he joined in for the last line: “… land of the free and home of the brave!”

  “Play ball!” someone shouted from nearby.

  Almost immediately after his spirits rose with that taste of normalcy, the train lurched in deceleration. He hoped to enjoy the sunrise while riding the train to safety, but they weren’t out of the city, yet, so they couldn’t be anywhere good.

  They'd been moving at ten or fifteen miles per hour, still pushing the dead engine in front, but thankfully it was much too fast for the zombies to keep up. They sometimes came stumbling out of the buildings on his left as they walked for the train, but they fell behind, screaming when they missed the rolling stock of humans rumbling by.

  I wonder if they'll follow us, even if they can't see us?

  Another mystery of the Zombie Apocalypse.

  He stood up and moved around the tractor-trailer to see why the train was stopping. It slowed as it approached the underside of the Jefferson Barracks Bridge, which carried a major interstate across the Mississippi River. It was also the most southern bridge in the St. Louis area and was the last bridge over the river for many miles to the south, as far as he could recall. No cars crossed it now, though some soldiers sat on the span; a few looked over the side down to him. Not too far above the bridge, two small, thin aircraft—drones?—flew in circles.

  He walked over to Victoria and Grandma, both still sitting near the wheels of the front trailer.

  The early morning ambient light put Victoria in a soft glow that was almost magical. Sure, she was pretty in any light, but right now, covered in lots of dust and dirt from yesterday’s ordeals, she made Liam's heart level up. The light even took the harsh swelling of her lip and cheek and evened them out.

  He wondered if she liked him, or merely tolerated being there because she had no better prospects in this catastrophe. The insecure side of his heart said she wouldn't have given him the time of day in any other situation, but the pragmatist said she's had plenty of opportunities to ditch him and Grandma and traipse off with people and groups more prepared than them.

  On balance, he accepted that she probably stuck with him because she liked him, at least as a friend. A “fall-of-civilization friend.” They made a good team so far, and there was no reason to doubt she was going to stick with him for as long as it took to reach a safe destination—assuming one could ever be found. What would she do if they never found a safe landing spot? What if they had to be together for much longer?

  All right, Liam. Stay focused on the here and now.

  He finished his thought by agreeing with himself that indeed, she was pretty.

  “You two look like you're conspiring,” he said as he approached Victoria and Grandma.

  They had been conversing in low tones, but he was unable to glean any sense of what was said because they clammed up before he was close enough.

  “Hey, Liam. Grandma and I were just talking about when you were a little baby. How you'd wear your diapers. That sort of thing.” She gave Grandma a smile and turned and flashed Liam a big grin and a wink.

  He was near to feigning embarrassment when he saw her face had become black and blue in many spots. She had two black eyes to go with her cheek and swollen lips.

  He still thought she was beautiful, but he was serious when he knelt down to look at her. “My god, your face. Are you doing OK?”

  “Thanks. Yeah, I'm fine. It still hurts a bunch, but I have both my eyes, and my face will return to normal soon enough. I'll take it if it's the worst that happens to me this trip.”

  He ha
d a dark vision of that man punching this girl's face, and a wave of violent rage swept over him, a burning desire to track the man down and … When he realized that man was probably dead, the violence ebbed. A little.

  “I don't have any serious meds to help you. Just some ibuprofen. Can't hurt, right?” He dug in his pack, pulled out some rust-colored caplets and passed them to her. She put them in her mouth one at a time and swallowed each one without water.

  “Do you know why they're stopping the train?” she asked after downing the last one.

  “I think the Army is involved. I can see them up on the bridge. What would they want with a train full of refugees?”

  Victoria looked at Grandma and made sure she was comfortable, then stood next to him so she could see, too. She gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder. “Let's go check it out.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait?” he said with surprise.

  “You want to know what’s happening, right?” Victoria replied.

  “Of course.”

  “The answer is that way,” she added as she stepped down the nearest ladder.

  Liam passed a bemused look to Grandma and she waved him to go follow the girl in the black dress.

  There were no undead in the immediate area. This piece of railroad throughway was mostly muddy riverbank on one side, and a steep escarpment covered in trees on the other. He knew, by the location of the bridge, the area up the hill was the massive Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. As a fan of zombie books and movies, he noted the irony that the one place you don't find them in real life is the cemetery. Zombies don't rise from the dead, nor do they find living people hanging out there. Maybe that's where they should hide?

  There were a few walkers well behind the train, but otherwise, it looked pretty safe to step off. A few men and women ran back to provide security for everyone.

  He jumped down to be next to Victoria.

  Jones called down to the pair to ask where they were going, but once they told him, he laughed. “I'll stay back here. Someone has to keep your Grandma from running off, too!”