“I think we have to watch each other and support each other to make sure that doesn't happen. You and I have both looked deep into the gaping maw of the zombie world. I think we both know we are going to have to do more killing. We have to be ready for it. I'd kill anyone without hesitation who tried to do harm to you.”
He didn't say it to impress Victoria with his bravado, so he was surprised she took his hand in hers and said “thank you.”
As they sat there, Liam tried to think of something to change the subject to something a little less heavy. Victoria beat him to it. “Phil seems like a nice guy. Kind of intense, but I guess that's the kind of attitude we need to survive this mess. He seems to have a connection with Grandma now, which is also good. I hope he stays with us.”
“Me too. He's definitely better than teaming up with a juggler or a writer. Someone who can't protect us.”
They laughed a little at the thought.
“If the world really is going to hell, as Phil says, the next few weeks are going to be really important to our long-term survival. Phil would be a great addition to our team, but we're going to need many more Phil's on our side to survive. When I wasn't playing computer games I was reading books on zombies, and most of those had good information on how the world would be changed forever if zombies swarmed the Earth. Single people and small groups had the most trouble surviving. Evil people are using the chaos to build their own teams of bad guys. Like finds like. It's the same in nearly every book I've ever read on the subject. No one survives on their own for very long. We have to stick with larger groups of people who—and this is the key to the whole thing—know what the hell they're doing.”
“You should lead our group, Liam.”
“Uh, no. In case you didn't notice I'm only sixteen. And I—”
“Wait a minute! Grandma said you were fifteen!” She was smiling broadly as she said it.
“Well, my birthday is in a couple weeks...” He realized again that without records to back him up, he could say anything about his own past, including his age. But he wasn't a chronic liar. Intentionally deceiving Victoria wasn't something he wanted to do with any regularity.
Apparently, she was just enjoying a little good-natured ribbing at his expense.
“OK, let me re-phrase that. In case you didn't notice, I'm only fifteen.”
“Then you are much too young to be a leader.” She turned on him and pushed him backward on his bed, then she threw her arm across his chest and pulled herself near his face. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips, a big smile, and then laid her head down on top of his chest. She held him tight as she asked another question. “Liam, do you think the world will ever get back to normal? Will we always be fighting zombies and each other? Was there anything true about that agent's speech?”
Liam's instinct was to say no. The world would never be the same again. If St. Louis was any indication, humanity had crossed a threshold from which it could never return. The zombies alone were bad enough, but the real destruction was from men and women who were scared and angry at the changes taking place around them. If people had unified in the face of the zombies it would have been easy to dispatch them, contain the spread, and maintain a semblance of the old world. Instead, gripped by fear, humanity embraced the chaos, worked against each other, and only looked out for themselves. The zombies were merely feeding on the already dead flesh of society.
He lost himself in thought for a few minutes, but when he was getting ready to answer her, he realized she had fallen asleep. He couldn't see her face, but he could hear her breathing and knew she was out. He was content to let her lay there, enjoying the faint scent of her hair. He could also smell coal dust—she was still covered in it.
After several minutes, he decided to try to roll her over and turn her so she was laying correctly on top of his bed. She stirred, but allowed him to reposition her. He wished he could lay down next to her and drift off to sleep as well—sleeping next to a girl was high on his bucket list—but he still had some things he wanted to do in his house.
He was successful getting her where he wanted, and took a light blanket from under his bed and gently covered her. She was still in her cocktail dress, and he didn't want her exposed legs and arms to get chilly. As he did it, he remembered it had only been four days since he found Grandma lying asleep on her bed, and he performed a similar service. When she woke up the following day, it began a series of adventures which ended on that bridge across the river this morning. What adventures awaited them when Victoria woke up from her slumber?
Please world, let her sleep through the night.
4
Liam grabbed some clean clothes, and on a whim decided to pull his favorite book—Earth Abides—off the shelf and carry it with him. He'd read a hundred books on zombies and the end of the world; Ish was still the survivor that impressed him the most. He didn't face zombies, but he walked into a world gone mad, just like the current real world was losing its mind. Life imitating art?
I can think of worse books to be in.
With one last look at Victoria, he closed the door and returned to the family room. He found Grandma and Phil talking about the house and the surrounding neighborhood. She didn't live at the house, but had visited many times, so she knew the basics. They were currently discussing geography of the area.
“This subdivision is pretty old, so most of the houses are small ranches with plenty of room between them. I have no idea how many houses are in the neighborhood. Maybe fifty? I usually only drive to this point on the street so I can't tell you what's up the hill. Liam, can you help describe the area to Phil?”
“Sure, Grandma. Well, the rest of the block is a lot like what you see out our window. Small houses with lots of trees, and forest surrounding the whole neighborhood. I guess we are a pretty poor neighborhood, with lots of pickup trucks and fishing boats parked in the driveways. What more do you want to know?”
Phil explained the most important factor was the proximity to and access from the interstate. On that point, the area was a mixed bag as far as Liam could explain. His subdivision dumped residents onto a main east-west controlled access highway called “M.” Highway M went east for less than a mile and hooked into Interstate 55. It was the next exit south of Imperial, where they'd met Mark with his water station. Driving west on M took the driver through a lot of woodsy areas on the way to a couple small towns as well as the county seat. It was decidedly rural, though there were some modern developments along the route—mostly single-family homes in large subdivisions for people who commute to St. Louis proper.
“So your subdivision is right off a major transit corridor that ties into the same highway where half of St. Louis is now escaping?”
“That's bad, huh?”
“Well my house was inside a town being burned by the same crowd, so yeah, that does give me some concern. But thanks to guys like Mark helping people up the highway, these folks might not be as hostile to us as they were to those closer to the roadblocks across the river.”
“Or maybe the looters and pillagers are still in Arnold and are stripping it of value before moving on?”
“Pillagers?”
“It's from a game I play. You can rob and destroy cities, just like real life, it turns out.”
“Sounds like a fun game.” But Phil wasn't laughing.
Grandma took the opportunity to speak up. “Those people are going to be desperate, no matter where they've come from. They're going to be looking for food and water especially. Maybe a place to stay once it gets dark outside. They're going to be looking for houses with lots to offer. Liam, do you want to show Phil here what your dad has been doing downstairs?”
“How do you know about that?” He was pretty sure she had not been in their basement in the past decade.
“Your dad told me on one of his many visits. I don't think he was too worried I'd tell the world about it.”
Liam took Phil down into their cramped basement. The biggest room contained
a small television set and a few chairs on a red shaggy carpet. It looked like it had been designed in the 1970's and hadn't been updated since. There was a small room off one side which Liam explained had the HVAC equipment for the house. And he told him there was another room hidden from view. Phil was unable to locate it by just looking around.
The entire back wall was decorated with vertical wood paneling. But there was one section of paneling that broke away from the rest when Liam adjusted a small shelf on the slab. It allowed the section to fall forward so he could set it to the side. It revealed a normal-sized doorway leading into a small twelve-foot by twelve-foot room. It wasn't a secret room per se, but Liam's dad had apparently removed the door and put the wood paneling over the entire wall to hide what was behind it. Someone would have to be very observant to realize the footprint of the basement didn't match that of the upstairs. Liam's father had explained it would help hide the room from casual thieves which, at the time, was his main concern. He wondered what his dad would say about looters?
Phil pulled a flashlight off his utility belt, then stepped inside and whistled in amazement. It was part-food store, part-sporting goods store, and part-armory.
“I love your dad's flag collection.”
The first thing inside the door was a tie-down holding several flag poles with flags attached. Liam recognized most of the flags because Dad loved to fly them when the weather was nice—American flags, the POW-MIA flag, and a variety of other colorful flags. He also saw some historical flags he suspected were affiliated with one political movement or another, though his Dad never flew those as far as he could recall. One had a snake, another had a polar bear, and a third had what looked like a porcupine.
Beyond the flags, the most attention-grabbing things were the guns.
“Wow, you know under Federal guidelines your dad would probably be classified as a domestic terrorist. I know a lot of people who wouldn't appreciate all that ammo your dad owns.” He was pointing to shelves and shelves of ammo. “It would no doubt give those type of people conniption fits. All those guns sitting over there would cause them to fill their drawers.” He gave out a hearty laugh, “Me? I'm just jealous.”
Liam knew his dad had been stockpiling food, but he'd no idea he had also been stockpiling guns and ammo. His dad had always had guns, and shooting was practically the only activity they could all do as a family, but even Liam was surprised at the numbers of guns he was looking at now. He recognized a dozen or so AK-47s, a couple AR-15s, and maybe five or six tactical shotguns of various makes. There were other rifles and handguns he couldn't identify.
It reminded him of a thought he had earlier that same day.
Did my dad know this collapse was coming?
His first instinct said he was being insane. His dad was prone to go on tirades against the government, especially the two-party political system—he often joked it was really a single party with two faces. But he never even hinted he would ever take up arms against the government or was otherwise involved in anything related to survivalism or...rebellion. Was that what this stash represented? Conspiracies and secrets were the stuff of fiction. Though, how many other parents had secret rooms stuffed with guns? Liam recalled one book he read about a man who defends his neighborhood somewhere in Chicago. His brother lived with him and had an arsenal just like this one. At the time, he thought that book was a flight of fancy—but it turned out it was frighteningly realistic. Looking at all the guns put a lot of things in proper context in many books...
“Well, that settles it. We have to defend this house. This cache is too valuable to surrender to looters. Your dad was a genius to hide it like he did.” He reoriented on Liam as he spoke. “Liam, I'd like to stick around with you and help you and your family defend this. I can't imagine anywhere safer right now, and I feel my fate lies with you after what happened this morning on the bridge.”
Liam didn't have to think about it. They all agreed on the need to work together. The guns and ammo nearby were going to be keys to everyone's survival. Liam knew his father would like Phil.
The molecules are starting to gather.
They sealed up the room again, making sure it was tightly shut and they placed a chair in front of the wall so it all looked completely mundane before they went back up the steps.
The only thing that didn't make sense, if his dad did know the collapse was coming, is why his he sent him to live with Grandma. If he knew how bad things were going to get, why didn't he have her come to live at his house?
As his dad was fond of saying, “You'll need a tinfoil hat to solve that mystery.”
5
Marty, Phil and Liam had some near-stale bread, a few bags of potato chips, and other consumables from the pantry. Everything had been emptied out of the freezer and refrigerator. Probably because the power had been out for so long. Mom and Dad must have done that before they left.
It was near dusk when a loud banging noise came from the front door.
Phil pulled out his service pistol and Liam did the same. Liam whispered he was going to look out the peephole in the door, but Phil advised against it.
“No! If they're bad guys, they might shoot you through the door. You need to go to the front window and look out from behind the drapes. Do it slowly so they don't notice you.”
Liam was able to move to the front window by crawling along the floor. A shadow passed in front of the window for a few moments, as if the person who had rung the bell was now looking inside the house.
“Hey, Jerry! You in there?”
Liam recognized it as his neighbor across the street.
“You still want to look out the front. Study the scene. Make sure he's alone.”
He was slow to pull back the curtain, and spent several moments watching the big man standing on his front porch. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Phil seemed satisfied, though he didn't put his gun away. He merely held it at his side, slightly behind his leg so it wouldn't be seen by anyone walking through the front door. “Tell him you've unlocked the door and that he should walk through slowly, and then shut it behind him.”
Liam did as instructed, and the neighbor did the same. Soon he was standing in Liam's foyer with a bunch of questions.
“Hello, Mr. Poole, sorry for the trouble, but we aren't sure what's going on around here. We didn't want to take any chances someone was forcing you to knock on our door.”
“Hmmm, well I guess I can understand. The world has gone sour, that's for sure. But where's your dad? Who's this guy?” He was pointing to Phil.
“This is Phil. He helped us get out of St. Louis—Grandma and I.” He had the good sense to not mention Phil was a police officer from the area's least favorite town. Maybe Mr. Poole wouldn't even know about Arnold.
“Got out, did ya? Me and Virginia tried to get out, too. We'd been staying at our son's house up in Oakville and decided to try to return here. I don't know why we didn't just stay with him. Ginny and I were stuck at that hellish blockade on the interstate. We hit traffic, stopped, our car got blocked in, and that was that. We sat in our car, even though the jam was never going to move again. We had nowhere else to go, you see. I guess we were there for maybe twelve hours. Ran out of gas to run the air conditioner just a few hours in. More and more people kept showing up. Soon there were so many people at that roadblock, and so many of them were panicked from the dead folks walking behind them, they started shooting at the police on the other end of the highway bridge. So much shooting. Then the sick showed up. Not a lot mind you, not at first, but everyone with a gun was shooting at them—and none of them with a whiff of sense about how to properly shoot firearms.”
He paused for a moment, as if steeling himself.
“Anyway, one of those idiots put a round into my car and it struck Ginny in the back of the head. Poor girl died on the spot. Once that happened, I just got out and started walking around. I guess I was hoping I'd catch a bullet too. It was so loud. So many guns. I don't even r
emember how long that went on. Hours maybe. As luck would have it, I couldn't get myself shot. I did, however, see one of the infected with his face attached to the neck of a dead woman about the age of Ginny. It was horrible; it was chewing through her neck… Let me tell you, that woke me up. I found a gun that had been dropped by someone—dead perhaps—and was more determined to get myself offed. I couldn't figure out how to turn the rifle on myself so I did the next best thing. I began walking toward the roadblock.”
Mr. Poole pointed to a chair in the front room. “Mind if I sit down?”
They all moved into the front room and sat where they could. Grandma had been sitting in the kitchen, listening, but as they settled in, Liam helped her sit down with them.
“As I was saying, I had that rifle in my hands—not even sure if it had any ammo—and I began walking over the bridge, heading for the big blue water tower beyond the river. I had to weave around many of the cars parked on the first half, but the police had ensured no one could drive past some concrete barriers they'd placed smack in the middle of that thing. I just helped myself across those barriers and began walking across the empty side of the bridge—pointing my gun in the direction of the police. I hoped it was only a matter of time before they cut me down.”
“Ha! Those bastards tried. They shot around me. In front of me. Maybe they intended to miss. But soon there were other men next to me. First just a few, but then dozens. They'd been sitting amongst those first cars, probably waiting for a sign to try to cross the bridge and get up close and personal with the people on the roadblock. I was the idiot who got the whole thing rolling.” He gave a hearty but tired-sounding laugh at the thought. “I don't think those police really wanted to shoot us. I'm so large and long in the tooth, I didn't even make it to the roadblock itself before everything was over. Some of the police fought and died there. Most jumped in cars and fled. Some surrendered—but that didn't turn out well.”
Poole took a deep breath.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 36