“Yeah, I'm glad it wasn't him, too.” She walked where he pointed. He was torn between sending her first into the darkness or running the risk of her trying that door handle. Falling in behind, his finger was once again well away from the trigger.
They went upstairs to Angie's apartment and found another dead guy inside a pile of bloody clothes in the middle of her apartment. It was hard to know how he died because he was in pieces. Only his black clothing tied him to the other man.
Still, no Liam.
They finally went into the basement. Liam had his room down there, but other than the dryer sitting in front of the rear basement door, the entire level seemed pretty much undisturbed. They both returned to the main floor, stopping at the body on the kitchen floor.
Jerry searched it but found no identification of any kind. He had numerous pockets in his tactical vest and pants filled with rifle magazines and various types of knives, batons, and handcuffs. He figured he was more policeman than soldier. But that didn't feel entirely right, either.
He did find one clue. At the bottom of a small pocket up near the shoulder, he found several sheets of paper stapled together and folded multiple times—beyond what any normal person would do. He unraveled them and spread them out on top of the dead man's chest. Using his light, both he and Lana were able to scan the names typed in three neat columns. A few were crossed out with a pencil.
“What the hell? This list has most of our family on it. Maybe all of it.” He scanned the names and found one with a line through it. “No. No. No. This is a list of people someone is trying to kill.” He scrunched up the paper with his hands and crushed it into a ball with primal grunts.
“Why? How do you know that?” she replied with skepticism.
He had anger in his eyes while pointing to the sealed room. “Because my brother's in there—dead. And his name's crossed off.”
He held it out to her. She unfolded the paper and spread it on the table where she could get a better look.
While she studied it, he felt that deep-seated fear once again. Something was going to reach out from the darkness and pull Lana away from him. He was powerless to stop it. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure something bad was going to get her. Again, his heart reminded him it was capricious—it pounded like a freight train as he got to his feet and stood next to her. His arm found her waist and sought the comfort of the contact.
He was supposed to be the strong one.
Lost in his emotions, he was well and truly startled by her voice. “There's my name. Yours! We aren't crossed out. Nice to know we're still alive.” She let out a nervous chuckle and leaned into him. She read the names under her breath—mostly family he recognized—from time to time she lamented this or that cousin or aunt with their names crossed off. “And here's Marty's name. She's alive, thank you, God! At least she hasn't been, what? Assassinated?”
He grunted an affirmation, though he had no idea. If this was an assassin's list, he didn't want to know who else was on it, and yet he had to know.
She turned the page. Then she turned once more. On the third page, she pointed with excitement.
“No line! Liam has no line over his name.” She set the flashlight on the table, exhaled deeply, and turned to hug him. “I'm so sorry about Craig.”
She sobbed deeply, as if she'd held it in until she knew whether to cry happy or sad. What came out was hard to read with so many dead, but he and she shared the happy knowledge Liam wasn't already dead by whatever hand had made such a horrible list.
He wanted to cry in relief, but they were hardly a step closer to finding Liam. He had to hold it together.
“Thanks. Me too.” Jerry gently separated himself and looked around. “Looks to me like these men were hiding in Marty's place, waiting for our family members to come collect her. When my brother arrived, they must have killed him and tossed him into that room—he pointed to the one he'd steered her from—with some others I didn't recognize. If they were targeting our family, maybe these other people just wondered in?”
“That's horrible. Were they Marty's neighbors?”
“Yeah, that would make sense. Everyone checks on Grandma.”
“I hate to say this, but I don't care about anyone else. I just can't. Not yet. I need my Liam. Where the hell is he, Jer?”
He took a moment to gather his thoughts. He'd been formulating a positive-thinking reply since they walked into the empty house. Originally he'd built his answer on a fiction that would convince her Liam was still alive, but the more he considered the facts, the more he felt maybe things weren't as bad as he feared. Not if Liam remembered half of what he'd tried to teach him over the past few years.
This is the same kid that lives inside those dumb video games.
He swallowed hard and tried to think of how Liam was pretty good at some real-life things. Shooting, for instance. A key point for what he was going to tell Lana.
“If I had to guess, I'd say Liam took Grandma and tried to escape the city.”
Lana raised her head. The question on her face was evident.
“Because her guns are gone. I noticed, when we searched downstairs, they'd been moved.” He pointed his light at the black box sitting on the stove top. “I left her two guns in that box, hidden in her rafters downstairs. Because they were so high, there's no way she got them herself. Since the house isn't otherwise looted, it means someone pulled them down who knew they were there and what was inside. That means she told Liam and he has them. I'd bet anything they're armed and attempting to escape this town.”
“Grandma and Liam, out in the city? I'm not sure if I should be jumping with joy or screaming in fear.”
“Me either, my love. Me either. But at least we know these creeps didn't get him. We just have to think where he'd go.”
He didn't want to appear pessimistic, though he certainly felt it. Whoever made the list was still out there. That suggested Liam wasn't safe at all. But that wasn't even the dangerous part. Liam had gone off into the urban decay of St. Louis with 104-year-old Marty. At best, he had a couple of little handguns to defend himself. The dead were walking, killing everyone left alive, and the police, fire, and other civilian infrastructure lay in ruins. If Liam could get out of the dying city, and if he avoided getting himself scratched off this list, and if he survived the other million dangers, where would he go with an old woman?
They only needed a few seconds to read the other's thoughts.
“We have to get back home.”
Chapter 1: Somewhere in Suburbia
Fifteen-year-old Liam Peters had just survived the worst four days of his life. He'd killed zombies. Been shot at. Was nearly run over. Ran from gangs. Ascended one of the longest flights of stairs west of the Mississippi. Rode a train through swarms of zombies. Saw friends die. Dodged falling bombs. And, if he had to stretch things even a little to mimic World of Undead Soldiers—his favorite online game, he'd say he slayed the undead and other supernaturals to rescue a buxom maiden.
Looking at her now, Liam admitted Victoria wasn't very buxom, and strictly speaking, they rescued each other, but he allowed some liberties in retelling his own story. She was also a filthy mess. When he'd found her, she was wearing an elegant black cocktail dress she'd worn since her survivor story began, and over the course of their escape from the city, she'd gotten filthier and filthier. Now she was covered in black coal dust from their stint on the train, and it was nearly baked on from all the running and sweating they'd done to get away from the horde of zombies this morning. She wasn't much to look at right then as far as a damsel to be rescued. If he had a mirror, he assumed he looked just as bad.
Fortunately, he could overlook all those things and simply see the pretty young woman who captured his heart over the few days they'd been together. She was sleeping peacefully next to Grandma, both lying at the foot of a large sycamore tree on the near the bank of the river they'd just crossed. A large mass of zombies could still be seen on the other side, althoug
h a majority of them had wandered away since there were no easy pickings anymore.
Liam shivered when he looked across at the horde on the wrong side of the river. He fancied himself an expert on zombies. He'd been reading zombie books and watching zombie movies since he was a small child. Probably much earlier than was reasonable if the parenting experts were to be believed. It did give him plenty of reference material to explore the behavior of these plague victims, though he was quick to realize real life was much more random than any book. Sometimes luck played as much of a factor in survival as preparation. It's something you can't appreciate until you've seen death within inches, only to have it pass by harmlessly. Liam resolved to cherish every second he had with Grandma, and make every effort to be a stand-up man for Victoria. He'd seen too many men give up, fade away, or just go crazy over the past few days. He knew just being there for her would be more than most men could provide in this new existence.
So what do we do now, Mr. Expert?
Liam had been working on that problem since Victoria laid down to sleep. Was that an hour ago, maybe two? He looked at his watch and saw it was nearly noon. Noon on the fourth day since the sirens.
He didn't know exactly what they should do, but almost every book he'd ever read on zombies made it clear the only way to truly survive in the long run was to find a strong group of like-minded individuals. Not that he was being choosy back in St. Louis, but he'd dropped in with a group of St. Louis city policemen as they escaped the city last night. It maximized his own odds for sure, though getting out was still a very close affair.
Once on this side of the river, many of the police and other survivors had scattered, in a hurry to get wherever they needed to go. The only officer he really missed was Jones, the beefy black cop who laid down his life saving a large group of survivors. He had nothing against any of the remaining officers, but they all had families and were quick to be moving on. Liam needed to go somewhere specific. Home.
He looked at the roadblock and only saw a handful of local cops, a couple police cars, and a mish-mash of other survivors loitering about, as if unsure where to go next. It was a new day. A new part of the world. A new adventure. It was just like setting out in his online gaming world.
Except in this world you don't get to start over if you die.
2
Marty was asleep. She knew it right away. She was standing in her backyard. The lush green grass contrasted with the fresh white paint of her standalone garage filling the scene before her. She left her real house days ago, and now she was standing in her yard, as it was decades ago when she first moved in.
“Hello again, Marty.”
It was her husband, Aloysius—Al for short. Well, it looked like her husband. An angel? The being had helped her earlier this morning as she lay dying on a bridge being chased by a horde of infected, though she couldn't recall the specifics of that encounter.
“Why can't I remember our last meeting? I know we met in this...dream world...and you gave me something to say to Phil from his dead wife. But what?”
“Ah yes. I told you I'm not really supposed to help one way or the other for it could upset the balance of this world in unexpected ways. I can mitigate that ethical dilemma somewhat if you yourself don't remember the agent of that unbalance. Since I'm in your head already, I can—make adjustments.”
“So you're scrambling my brain? It's already old and scrambled, I'm afraid.” She laughed a little, but it was true.
“I needed to bring you here, Marty. And I'm sorry to do it. But you have to see the world for what it really is if you're going to save it.”
In front of her, where a second before there was nothing, she saw her nurse and friend, Angie. Dead with a large hole in her head. She had become infected and was largely responsible for forcing Marty out into the world with Liam.
“I want you to see her. Truly see her, and those like her. These—infected—are the future of the human race. Look closely.”
She only saw the blood. So much of it. Many infected people had blood oozing from their eyes, ears, and noses—as if they had some terrible equatorial disease such as Ebola. But it was so much worse because the victim never fell over and died. They just kept walking around, trying to spread the infection as far and wide as possible. She felt horrible Angie had to be the example for this demonstration.
“Yes, I'm sorry too. But what if I told you that, because of an unfortunate series of dangerous coincidences, the trajectory of the human race has been changed so it will now die in obscurity on this planet? Every last human being is destined to stand around staring off into space with nothing of any value inside their brains?”
“I'd say you were describing every new generation of kids that has come along in the previous hundred years. I should know!”
“So right you are, Marty. But this would be the last generation, ever. And the members would all look like poor Angie there. Until the sun burned out, the only humans surviving would be those like her. She would have seen the sun die if she wasn't shot.”
“Impossible!”
“In an infinite multiverse, nothing is impossible.”
She looked at Angie again. “Not that it matters in the short run, but surely they'd wither away after a time?”
“No, these terrible creatures are imbued with a power both terrible and wonderful. That same power which allows me to talk to you here is also responsible for—'animating' people like Angie. That energy is practically infinite, which means the sickness will last for eternity.”
“They'll live forever?”
“They'll die forever, Marty. They're dead. But we aren't going to let that happen. There is a cure. You will find it. Of that, I'm certain. You're already on the course right here and now. I just need to tweak your memory a little. I can summon a little more of that—energy—to help you collect your third partner.”
Ha. A cure? She had considered that at the start of the outbreak, but it seemed impossible once she realized the condition of the infected. How could a body recover from such trauma? And what of the mind? What was Al saying about energy and such? Marty admitted he often spoke above her.
Al walked closer to her, not in a menacing way, but with purpose. “I'm sorry again, Marty, but I have to show you something. It will be uncomfortable to watch.”
“What is it? Is someone in trouble?”
“There you go again, thinking of others. But this time you're right, someone is in trouble. They're about to die.”
She looked at him and was dismayed to see how uncharacteristically serious he'd become. Something bad was coming. He leaned close. She heard a car engine approaching. It was a sound she recognized. He began to whisper.
“This is how Victoria dies.”
And then she saw it happen.
3
Grandma woke with a start. “OH MY GOD!” She heaved sideways and tumbled into the sleeping figure of Victoria next to her.
“Grandma, that's the second time today you've woken up saying that. What kind of dreams are you having?”
She looked around, initially unsure of her surroundings, but quickly gathered her wits. Last night, she'd almost gotten them all killed when she woke up screaming those same words while zombies were lurking around their group. “I think there's a cure to this thing. I think I'm a key part to learning the secret of that cure. I've been told—”
She appeared to force herself to think, but to no avail. “He showed me...things.”
“Grandma, if I didn't know better, I'd say you've been reading too many zombie books. Of course, that's what they tell you. 'There's a cure' and it's up to you and your merry band to find it and save mankind. As if there's no one else in the world searching for a cure but two kids and their grandma. Who told you that? Was it the same person who told you about Phil's wife?”
Just this morning, she seemed to glean information on a police officer's dead wife and daughter “from beyond,” which helped them negotiate their way to safety over the bridge—b
ut that seemed like a miracle. This seemed more like misinformation. A distraction.
“I don't know. I have these dreams and they're so vivid, but I forget them almost as soon as I wake up. I think it's Al telling me these things.”
“Grandpa?”
Liam remembered great-grandpa Al from when he was a small child, and through pictures and movies his family had taken back then, but he had very little direct recollection of the man, other than he was a kindly person who loved to laugh and joke with anyone who happened to be in the room with him. As with his great-grandma, he referred to him simply as “Grandpa” in normal conversation.
“Grandpa is talking to you in your dreams?”
“That feels correct.”
Liam took a minute to study her. He knew she was quite old, 104 to be exact, but never once had she ever displayed the least bit of dementia. He didn't think she was starting today. “Alright then. I believe you, of course. But what does he expect us to do about a cure? He might as well tell us Santa Claus is real.”
Grandma gave him a sideways glance, which Liam took as an invitation.
“Santa is real?”
Victoria hit him on the shoulder, but all three were laughing.
The consensus was that even if there was a cure to this horrible plague, they were in no condition to find it. They were hardly in a position to move beyond the tree. Grandma's cane went MIA back under the Arch, and the big wheelchair given to her by a passerby was lost last night when Liam whiffed tossing it onto a moving train. He and Victoria could help her walk for a short distance, but that wouldn't work for a longer journey. Step one of their master plan to save the world had to begin at the most rudimentary level. They had to find transportation.
Liam studied their group. He was the fifteen-year-old boy dressed in jeans and a Mountain Dew T-shirt, carrying a small Ruger Mark I .22 caliber pistol inside his waistband. Victoria was his partner, a modestly pretty 17-year-old girl clad in a formerly beautiful black cocktail dress, covered almost head to toe in coal dust, and accessorizing with Liam's brown leather belt around her waist so she could use his holster for a duplicate Ruger Mark I. They were both caring for Liam's 104-year-old great-grandmother. She was wearing a light blue pant suit and a head scarf, with the ability to walk unassisted for about ten feet, armed only with a Rosary. They also had Liam's backpack which had some sundries such as off-the-shelf pain medications, a near-full box of 1,000 rounds of .22 ammo, food, and a couple remaining bottles of water.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 30