“Nobody's tossing Grandma,” she said from behind the tire with a good deal of humor.
People up the line of train cars had the same idea. They took the opportunity to stretch their legs and get out of the cramped cars. Many had climbed into empty coal cars for last night’s escape and now tried to trade up to options with more room. A good number found the middle flatcar, while others chose to sit on the highest points of the graffiti-covered boxcars.
Liam noticed a man drift further outside the orbit of the crowd, then continue into the woods. He was apparently going to climb the escarpment to gain access to the bridge above them.
“Is that your friend Hayes?” Victoria asked, pointing to the same loner.
“It kind of looks like him.”
They walked up to the front of the train, where the passengers were thickest. Liam pointed to a small trail leading up the fifty-foot hillside. Whoever they’d spotted going up this hill would be easy to follow on such an obvious pathway. The man was already very near the top.
“That's got to be Hayes.” He was sure of it now that he could see the man's clothing. The same suit pants and shirt. He couldn't see it from this direction, but he could visualize his ugly tie.
“Do you think he stopped the train?” Victoria asked.
“No idea, but what if he knows how we can get out of the city. Maybe he arranged for us to cross here to safety?”
“I told you answers were this way,” she said with assurance before starting up the trail.
2
It wasn’t easy for Victoria to scale the steep path in her broken-heeled shoes, but they still made good time. As they reached the top of the hillside, level with the decking of the bridge, they moved cautiously so as not to be seen by the military. Liam didn't think Hayes ever turned around to check if anyone was following, but they couldn't make any assumptions.
“I guess we can't hide from them,” Liam pointed to the drones above. They shared a nervous laugh.
Hayes had walked about 100 yards onto the northern span of the bridge, into the bright orange rays of the sunrise. This put him about a quarter of the way over the river. The near side of the bridge roadway was completely empty, so there was no possible way to avoid detection if they tried to pursue him.
They crouched at the very end of the decking, partially behind the concrete side railing. Unable to follow Hayes onto the bridge, he examined the highway as it approached the bridge complex. A massive barricade had been set up with tractor-trailers, concrete road barriers, orange construction barrels, and some shipping containers tossed off to the sides of each lane and median to block the approach to the bridge. Cars remained parked on the highway as far as he could see back into this part of St. Louis.
“Odd that there aren't people swarming this bridge.”
Victoria looked around before replying. “Maybe the zombies swarmed through here and chased them all off?”
“If the people were run off because of the zombies, where'd they go?”
They both turned their attention back to the man they were following.
Hayes stood in front of a line of Army Humvees in the middle of the span, but they were not letting him get very close. A lone person had come out to meet him, and he or she wore a yellow biohazard suit.
“It doesn't look like they want to get close to him,” Liam observed. “Does that mean they think he has the plague? He didn't look sick.”
“If he has it, we all have it,” Victoria suggested in a reverent tone. “He's been with us for two whole days, now.”
Victoria's answer troubled Liam in all sorts of ways. The most tragic was the thought of his friend having the plague. Someone so vibrant and young should never have to suffer from this disease. He remembered his very first encounter with the yoga lady. She also typified the young and the vibrant, and it still took her. That encounter horrified him, but just the idea of Victoria turning into a zombie made him ill. Could he … kill … his new friend?
If he turned into a zombie, was Victoria strong enough to put him out of his misery?
He considered all the angles as they watched Hayes talk with the roadblock representative. He was very animated in his gestures and paced back and forth while he spoke. They heard fragments of what he said, even at this distance, because he often yelled in anger, but Liam couldn't make out anything useful.
After about five minutes, Hayes got super agitated. He continued his ranting and arm flailing, but he tried to move around the person with the hazmat suit and walk toward the checkpoint in the middle of the bridge. Immediately, the soldiers leveled their rifles at him. Liam clearly heard the rounds being loaded into the chambers of weapons. He also heard one of the soldiers shout, “STAND DOWN, SIR, OR WE WILL KILL YOU.”
Victoria let out a little whistle. “I guess they think he's a serious threat.”
“Yeah, if they won't let him over, they'll never allow the rest of us.”
For a few tense moments, he didn't know if Hayes was going to back down. Any normal person would immediately back off, but Hayes seemed to stand there for a very long time as he apparently thought about it.
“Is he trying to kill himself?” Liam wondered. Everyone handled the stress of the Z-poc differently. His books reinforced that.
Hayes raised his hands and slowly backed away.
Victoria had been leaning forward as if willing herself to see and hear the action, but now she relaxed. Liam also let out a little extra breath he'd been holding. The tension on the bridge returned to normal. Hayes chatted again to the person in the hazmat get-up, but even from 100 yards away, Liam identified Hayes as crestfallen.
Ten minutes later Hayes started walking back toward the end of the bridge where he and Victoria were holed up.
“Do we stay here or try to get back to the train?” Victoria asked.
Is everything we do life or death now?
He looked at Hayes walking back, head down with a brisk stride. He glanced to the soldiers at the roadblock. They still hadn't moved from their menacing positions. He surveyed the train down below the bridge and judged whether they could make it back without being seen.
“I don't think we can avoid him at this point,” he said. “We might as well force his hand and see what he'll tell us.”
“Sounds good. But let's meet up with him over on the hill so that the train passengers can see us. We don't want to meet him by ourselves. Remember … dark and scary night,” she said, ending in her spooky voice from her earlier tall tale.
“You win Ms. Scary. Just go!”
They got away from the end of the bridge and sat on a rock out in the open, so Hayes wouldn't be surprised. He felt the best approach was to be friendly, even if he didn't feel friendly toward this man who was clearly lying to them about who he was and what he knew.
It wasn't long before Hayes came around the corner. “You dumb kids almost got me killed,” he said without preamble.
Neither he nor Victoria had any response.
“Ah, cat got your tongues?”
He came over and got directly in front of Liam, though he glared back and forth at both of them as he spoke. “I knew you guys followed me, but I thought you'd have better sense than to be seen by the Army up on the bridge. Especially you,” he pointed to Victoria, “since you seem to have the brains in this outfit.”
“Hey!” Liam tried to interject.
Hayes kept talking. “You guys might not have realized this, but while you were out on your nature walk, you were under the watchful eye of snipers. See the drones up there? These people are deadly serious about not letting anyone, and I mean anyone, cross this river.”
“Is that why they threatened to shoot you?” he replied with a bit of attitude.
Hayes looked at him and seemed to rethink his whole approach. He sighed heavily and sat down next to them on the rocks, with the train below partially obscured by the trees on the hillside.
“I can't help but respect you kids. You've done a better job than most in
staying alive. But you have to realize this is much bigger than you are. I’ve done deliveries for government-types like those guys on the bridge for a long time. These Army boys are under orders—very stupid orders if you ask me—but orders nonetheless. You can't just go sneaking around under the watchful eye of those people like you're on some kind of high school field trip. They will shoot you, shoot me, shoot your Grandma, shoot the smallest babe on that train—just on the off chance they can stop the disease from crossing this river.”
Victoria jumped in, upset. “First of all,” she said, “I'm not in high school anymore. I doubt Liam will ever go back, either. Second of all, with all the zombies walking around and all the infected people, there is no way to prevent the disease from crossing a simple river. Even a couple of dumb kids know that.”
“You're absolutely right. You share the opinion of most of us roadies at the CDC. But you do not share the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and with the president off doing god-knows-what, the military is pretty much in charge of managing the pieces of the nation that are still answering their phones.”
“But we saw the military killing zombies downtown,” Liam responded. “They helped us escape.”
“Well, it may be true they were killing zombies. That's their job. But I was there. Did you see any evidence they were helping us escape?”
He thought back to the battle. Except for a few volunteers from the Army and Marines, there were no troops on the St. Louis side of the river during the battle. Only the Abrams tank seemed to help them directly, and that was only for a few minutes. Then the Air Force came in and started the shock and awe. The bombs did drop to the north at first, but later they dropped them further south, including right on top of Captain Osborne. Maybe that was just a mistake in the chaos of war?
“So, it was just a coincidence the bombs, artillery, and tank fire helped us escape?” Liam sniped back.
“You always like to argue, don't you? Why do you think I was running so close to the lead guys trying to get out of there?”
Because you're a coward.
Hayes went on. “Those bombs would have killed us just as sure as the sun rises. We're all collateral now to the primary mission—which is to prevent the spread of the plague.”
He reflected on that while Hayes stood back up and brushed himself off.
“Right now, our only avenue of escape is to the south. The Army told me they're patrolling the eastern shore of the river, but they have no presence anymore in the entire state of Missouri. We have to get that train moving and on down the line before the Army changes their mind about letting this unauthorized transport continue out of the hot zone.”
“Hot zone?” Victoria asked.
“Yeah,” Hayes replied, “the middle of each metro area is now a bright red spot on some general’s map. They are letting people escape, for now, but there is going to come a time when they’ll try to close the whole thing down. It is pretty standard protocol in viral outbreaks, or so we’ve been told by our bosses.”
He started down the trail, leaving him and Victoria alone with the news.
“Pretty amazing a truck driver can get a meeting with soldiers up on some random bridge, huh?”
Liam thought about that for a second before replying, “Yeah, whatever he does for the CDC, I’ll be shocked if it involves driving a truck.”
3
He and Victoria hung back on the way down, giving themselves some distance from Hayes so they could talk. This time, he was in front of her.
“Do you think we can trust him?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“Absolutely not. We know he lied to us about what he does for the CDC. He stopped an escaping train—with a hundred living people on it—so he could talk to his friends on this bridge. At this point, the only thing we know for sure about him is that he has poor taste in clothing.”
That gave him a laugh. He hadn't dwelled on the man's fashion sense but had to agree it was pretty bad.
Liam went on. “He told us to head south because the Army was on the Illinois side and wouldn't let us cross, but what if they ordered him to go south? Maybe the only reason he needs us is to help him complete his mission that way?”
“That doesn't make sense, either,” Victoria answered. “If he was important, the Army could have tossed him a boat or helicopter, and he could get downriver with no problem. Why would they force him back on this train?”
He considered her question for a few moments as they continued downhill. “You're going to think I'm wearing a tinfoil hat for saying this, but what if Hayes is a big shot at the CDC, trying to get out of town. Maybe he got left behind. Maybe his friends needed to talk to him in person, but they weren't willing to risk infecting themselves by letting him across the bridge? We don't know anything about the disease, the source of the infection, or how the government is responding to this emergency.”
Victoria seemed to thrive on the conspiracy. “Yes! That's why he told us the Joint Chiefs are in charge. If the president is AWOL, maybe he's dead? Maybe the CDC—and guys like Hayes—are as confused as the rest of us. He just can't tell us he's trapped because that would mean the government wasn't in control!”
This girl was someone after his own heart. He realized his father's penchant for conspiracy theories had a lot to do with that, but he wasn't going to nitpick.
“If you say anything about a 'shadow government,' I'm going to kiss you on the lips!”
Victoria chuckled behind him.
“Well, right now, I'm fairly certain there is a 'dark-shrouded government' out there. Maybe someday we'll discover the other.”
Liam walked in silence as they reached the bottom of the trail. He was unsure of what just transpired between them. Before he could follow up with her, she walked quickly toward the engine at the front.
“I'm going to get some answers from the engineer. At the very least, I want to know where this train is going,” she yelled back.
He ran to catch up, impressed at the forthrightness of his lovely partner.
Hayes climbed into the engine compartment, so they figured they'd follow him up the ladder and into the engineer's area as well. As he walked along the side of the engine, he noted it had a name. Valkyrie. It was stenciled in large black type, which made it obvious on the orange paint of the engine. He rubbed his hand on the letters as he walked by.
Liam's imagination had drawn the man driving the train as a portly dude with a blue and white striped uniform and a funny little hat that said “engineer” on it. He'd spent too much of his youth watching a TV show about toy trains.
He followed Victoria into the compartment and was shocked to see the engineer was a woman. Her hair had a touch of gray—he had a hard time guessing the age of women—and she wore blue jeans with a filthy white t-shirt. She looked more like a mechanic than an engineer, woman or no.
“Who the hell are you two?” she said with a slightly exotic accent. He guessed she was from Eastern Europe if his dad's war movies were accurate.
“Oh, they're friends of mine,” Hayes replied immediately. “They helped me get out of the Arch.”
“I see. Well, pardon me for not talking, but I need to get this train going again, and I don't exactly know what I'm doing.”
“You did great getting us here,” Victoria said. “Thank you sincerely from all of us in the back.”
She let her compliment soak in before continuing.
“We're just wondering where you're going? You know, since we're kind of a captive audience.”
“Listen. I'm getting this train as far away from those things as I'm able. Going south as far as she'll go. But I have one stop to make—besides this stop for your persuasive friend.” She gave a nod to Hayes. “I have to pick up my husband. He's the real engineer. Over the phone, he walked me through some of the basics of getting his engine started, and I was able to get the machine moving, though not very fast. His engine was linked to a mate that has a malfunction, so we all get to watch the lig
ht show as we push the wretched thing.”
She turned dials and pushed buttons as she spoke.
“Bottom line is I don't know where I'm going besides picking up my family. From there, the track points south. Now go. I'm getting ready to blow the horn, so people know we're moving again.”
“Thank you, ma'am. I hope you find your family,” Victoria said softly while touching the woman's elbow.
“Yeah, thanks,” Liam added.
The engineer stopped what she was doing. “Thank you.” Liam thought she looked even more tired and worn down than everyone else. She had the stress of saving lots of folks.
And I thought saving Grandma was stressful.
As he walked out the door, he saw something jammed in a nook where the engine crew kept their gear. He wasn't positive what it was, but he kept it in mind for later reference. It might be the answer to someone's prayers ...
One last look at Hayes—he stayed in the engine—and he and Victoria went out and climbed off the Valkyrie. As they did, the engineer—they forgot to get her name—blew two long bursts on the horns to indicate the train was about to start moving.
Liam and Victoria ran together.
Everywhere, people scrambled to get back on their respective freight cars. When he and Victoria finally reached the last car, they were shocked to see a lot more people on it. Many of them were utterly filthy with coal dust. Those citizens smartly opted for the wide-open flatcar rather than the confining filth of the tenders.
The clanging sound of cars grabbing began in the front of the train, signaling departure right as they reached the car with Grandma on it. Liam had a panicked moment that they wouldn't even fit on the crowded car anymore, but Jones stood by the ladder and made space for them to climb aboard.
The police officer gave them a friendly greeting. “Smoking on the left, non- on the right. We have beverages in the front and VIP room in the back. Welcome to the High Rollers Club.”
They both laughed.
“And where's the women's powder room?”
“I'm sorry ma'am, but you just walked out of the restroom,” Jones said with a broad smile while pointing to the trees on the hillside.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 23