Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “We're almost home, thank God.” Angie was back to familiar territory. She drove in front of Marty's house on her way to park the car around back. “Do you want to get out here, dear? You can run in the front.”

  “Nah, I'll go around back, walk you in,” Mary Beth said without looking up from her phone. “We have to stick together, ya' know?”

  Angie nodded and continued down the block, turned right at the corner, and was just about to turn right into the alleyway when her car was bumped from behind.

  “Oh dear!”

  The collision was just a strong nudge, but it frightened her and she put on the gas rather than the brake, sending the car past the alley. She finally stomped the brakes and parked in the middle of the street, but then a black van pulled around her, so it blocked the front of her car. She put the car in park a few feet from the side of the van, bemused that they probably thought she was going to run from the scene. Next she wondered if she even had her registration and insurance information where she could get it.

  With a tired sigh, she said, “Of all the things happening in this world. Now this. Can you check the glove box? My car registration should be in there.”

  The accident caused Mary Beth to drop her phone next to the seat, and she spent a moment trying to retrieve it before turning her attention to the glove box.

  “They are getting out,” Angie said.

  Mary Beth stopped her search to check it out.

  The door of the van slid open in front of them. It was near-dark outside, so it was difficult to see the other party. The van parked so she had a view of the driver's seat through the opening created by the sliding door, but she couldn't make out the driver. Her headlights shone into the van but revealed nothing.

  Angie reached for her glove box to help Mary Beth but got goosebumps for a reason she couldn't explain. The van wasn't just a normal van. There was a partition behind the front seat. It was a lattice of metalwork, like a dog catcher would use. No one got out of the van to exchange paperwork and the longer she waited, the more uneasy she felt.

  “Grandma? Everything OK?” There was just a touch of heightened concern in the girl's voice. “Should we maybe leave?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Before she could finish her thought, the front window of the van descended. A few seconds later, the passenger threw something at them. The heavy object banged against the glass of the windshield, though it didn't break.

  “What the? Is that...”

  “OH MY GOD!” Mary Beth shrieked.. “That's a person's foot!”

  Something pushed the car from behind. Another van had come up to block them in.

  Time stood still for Angie. A shape emerged from the emptiness of the cargo van. An arm appeared first. Then a head. The creature was large. The size of a very big man. In fact, as it emerged, she could see it was a very large man. He came out on all fours. Sniffing the air.

  He jumped onto the hood of the car, apparently attracted to the bloody foot. He was a hulking thing, wearing nothing but bloody cargo pants and boots. His upper body was lacerated in many places, though the blood had long since dried. He was gaunt, but the muscles stuck out like some kind of sick medical dummy. The side of his neck was a festering explosion of veins and arteries, as if he had been assaulted by a ravaging wolf. His head was skeletal, with very little hair.

  And the eyes...

  Her granddaughter screamed.

  Angie reached over to Mary Beth and covered the girl's mouth. “Shush. He's probably on drugs, or something. He looks crazy.”

  Mary Beth nodded, but had to put her own hands over her mouth to control her involuntary sobs.

  “Listen. I need you to run to Marty's. I'm going to run the opposite direction and draw it away.”

  “It's looking—at me,” Mary Beth whimpered.

  “No, it's looking at the foot. You have to do as I say.”

  The girl shook her head vigorously in the negative. “I ... I don't know where she lives. These houses all look the same from the back.”

  “Run that way,” Angie said while pointing backward. “Find her house from the front.”

  It was the best plan she could summon. She'd been in other confrontations with belligerent patients over the years, and distraction was the order of the day until help could arrive. All she had to do was keep it away from Mary Beth, so she could call the cops. With a final look at her granddaughter, she pulled her keys from the ignition.

  The man on the hood slid a bit but didn't fall off.

  “I love you,” she said with despair. “You'll be fine, OK? Just run when the man leaves.”

  “I-I love you, too,” the girl replied.

  Angie opened her door and ran like hell. As fast as a woman of 58 years in decent shape could run in a pair of cheap tennis shoes. She left her car door open, assuming the thing would follow her. It did jump to the street as if to pursue, but it stood up and turned to Mary Beth instead. Angie realized her plan was doomed.

  “RUN!” Angie screamed.

  The guy turned back to her, unleashed an open-mouthed howl, but then jumped in the car. Mary Beth opened her door but didn't get out, so the sick guy crawled in next to her. Not knowing what to do, Angie ran around the rear van, and up to Mary Beth's open door. The girl screamed in mortal terror the entire time.

  Angie had heard stories of exotic drugs making people do crazy things like cutting off their own noses or hands, but this was beyond her imagination.

  So much blood.

  Angie tried to pull the girl from the blood-splashed face of the man, but her seat belt was still hooked.

  “Mary Beth, your seatbelt!”

  “Grandma, help,” Mary Beth wheezed, like she was out of breath.

  Angie moved to get a better look at the man. He was now in full sight, tearing into the soft flesh of the teen's side with a bloody mouth. To get to the seatbelt release she'd have to reach between the man and her granddaughter's body. It was impossible.

  “Oh God, please help me,” Angie cried out.

  She needed a weapon and checked the backseat for anything useful, but it was empty. She turned forward and saw the severed foot on her windshield, nearest the passenger side. She reached for it and brought it back to the gap of the door, ignoring the disgusting feel in her hands. Angie swung it as an awkward club against the man's head. He looked up and snapped several times at her. She tried to swing the foot again, but it was too slippery. It fell uselessly to the floorboard in front of her dying granddaughter.

  The girl stopped moving.

  This drugged out monster of a man had just killed her lovely Mary Beth. Angie looked at her through the tears in her eyes as the man continued to press his face into her bloody side. Angie took a step back and saw the big picture. The person or persons in the van were making no effort to help. They had done this intentionally.

  When she looked back inside, the unnatural man was already facing her. She took a few more steps backward and tried to close the door. The man more or less slithered over Mary Beth and fell out of the doorway so he could crouch on the pavement. He looked at her with empty eye sockets. Angie felt a wave of despair envelope her. She stumbled and fell to her backside. She had to resort to crawling backward with her elbows ...

  The sicko jumped on top of her, covering her with Mary Beth's blood.

  “Oh God, no! HELP!” She screamed as loud as she could—as if finally realizing there was a need for it—willing someone in the neighborhood to rescue her.

  Pinned to the ground, her last thought was of the girl in the front seat. How she failed her so completely. How quickly this all happened.

  She felt the teeth go into her neck. She struggled as best she could, but the fear was absolute. She went from panicked resistance to abject surrender in moments. Her vision floundered, and her breathing became labored. She closed her eyes, asking God for forgiveness.

  An eternity later, a man with a red baseball cap came into her field of vision. He shot something at the d
rugged-out man on top of her, and he ran away.

  “Are you OK?” the rescuer said in slow motion.

  “I don't know,” she tried to respond. “Where is Mary Beth?” Her voice was just a whisper because she couldn't catch her breath.

  “She went to your house,” red hat said. “Run to her!”

  Then he was gone.

  Angie got up, teetering on the edge of awareness. Mary Beth wasn't in her front seat.

  She's at my house?

  Angie walked up the alley; compelled to reach the safety of her home. She looked down at her feet, but the sight of those shoes plodding ahead, one after the other, made her stomach churn. She tried to keep her head up, but that was painful. Her neck burned on the left side, so she pressed her hand to stop potential bleeding like a good nurse.

  Angie went through the rear gate, and stumbled up the walkway through her backyard, and into the narrow channel between her home and the next. She held her arms out and could almost touch both brick walls, which for some reason made her giggle uncontrollably.

  She rounded the corner of the house and moved up the ramp to the pair of front doors. Marty's entry was on the right. She looked at it for a long time. Marty could call for help. Marty could—

  The cloudiness in her brain wouldn't allow her to complete the thought.

  “I must get home to Mary Beth.” Returning home was important. She desired it the most.

  She shuffled over to her own front door, to the left of Marty's. It was unlocked but was stuck—as usual. She gave it a good shove and it pivoted inward for her. She swung it shut. The steep wooden stairway loomed above. The bright lights in the entryway and on the stairwell hardly registered.

  “I'm coming, Mary Beth.”

  She held on to the banister as she took each step one at a time. She pulled herself with her hands as much as she used her legs. Several times, she became so dizzy she nearly let herself go. She giggled again, this time at the irony of surviving a grievous neck wound, only to die falling down some lousy steps. A pause was necessary at the top. She fell to her knees, depositing blood on the floor.

  “I'll clean that up later, don't worry, Marty.”

  Angie dragged herself to her door a few feet from the steps. The handle was a convenience to help her regain her feet. It was unlocked, and she tumbled through.

  “I'm home, Mary Beth. I'm just going to lie down for a bit, OK?”

  She wobbled in the direction of her bedroom.

  I'll just put myself to bed. I'll feel better in the morning.

  3

  “You sure this worked?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn't it? We saw she was bitten, then she went inside her house. I'd say that's a job well done.”

  “Yeah, though we both know HQ won't like it if we don't get this thing correct. Using infected victims to kill people isn't exactly a tried and true method of assassination.”

  “That's why it's so perfect. We can take care of this list and no one will suspect a thing. That will make the boss very happy, don't you think?”

  “Yeah, I guess. This test scenario did go better than I thought. Shame about the girl, though. She wasn't on our list.”

  “Let's not mention that in our report, huh? We'll just tell them the package was delivered to Marty Peters. She'll be dead by morning.”

  “Who's next?”

  The man pulled out a smartphone and scrolled through his text messages.

  “Looks like they want us down south. A couple of high-priority targets. Jerry and Lana Peters. The grandson of the soon-to-be-deceased Ms. Marty Peters. They live down in Jeffco.”

  “Aw hell. The sticks? Let's do that in the morning. We only have a couple more days before the world goes to shit. I want to enjoy some R&R in the city, ya' catch my drift?”

  The van's driver stared out his window at the house across the street. He wondered if Angie would do as she was supposed to. Surely the old woman in the lower level couldn't escape her own sick nurse. It was truly the perfect crime. But he knew the world was ending. His organization was helping it along. All the more reason to enjoy one more night of normal.

  “OK, but you're buying the first round. Tomorrow, we hunt some more.”

  Chapter 11: Camp Hope

  Liam was embedded with a gaggle of elderly survivors from the government camp run by the CDC, Homeland Security, or whatever. It didn't matter now because the camp was just a smudge on the landscape after the aerial incineration. His concern was how to get both himself and Grandma home, while doing right by the others who had escaped with them.

  They had walked out from the camp, maybe a mile at most on the road, and everyone seemed beat. Many had taken a seat on the metal guardrail. Grandma was leaning heavily against his side, indicating she was also spent.

  There was nothing hospitable where an unusual group like this could find safety for a night. The highway ran in both directions to their right and left, the camp they'd just left was behind them, and across the roadway was an even larger piece of woodland preserve, though Liam couldn't remember what it was called. He did know it tied in with a large Boy Scout reservation just down the interstate.

  Hmm. That's an idea.

  The safest call was to hole up inside the fence of the camp from which they'd just emerged. At least they knew there were no zombies inside the fence yet, unless the Chicagoans climbed out prior to the fireworks. However, Liam was worried Hayes and the military men would come back to check the status of the trashed camp, and they'd be recaptured. He wanted to be far away.

  By his estimation, the most sensible course of action then was to cross the highway and get into the woods. Spend the night in the forest resting so they can move again tomorrow.

  But the old folks didn't like the idea of spending time traipsing around in the woods. “We have to find a police station or fire department. They can call us an ambulance or something.”

  Another older woman agreed, adding, “Surely we aren't a threat to anyone. Perhaps someone on the road there will give us some food and water?”

  A third person said, “I ain't goin' into no woods.”

  The conversation was subdued—none of them wanted to follow Liam's path. They were convinced they would find help by going toward “civilization.” Liam didn't know about help, but he knew the chaos would be stronger if they went toward the urban core. Better to lay low out in the sticks. He did worry about finding food and water.

  “Grandma. What do you want to do?” He was speaking quietly so the nearby group wouldn't hear their discussion.

  “I know I sound like a broken record, but I'll do what you tell me to do. I trust you to find us the safest and best way home. You're the one who has to carry me.” She chuckled at that.

  “But maybe it's safer to stick with the group and go back into town?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Besides you, no one has any weapons. No one at all has food or water. I think this group is going to be a burden on anyone they cross. I'd not expect much sympathy, either. None of those people down on the highway look anxious to have more mouths to feed.”

  Liam watched the sad lot moving down the highway. None seemed very healthy. “I want to get you to safety across the highway before we're captured again. I think Hayes will be back.”

  “I'm really tired, Liam. My legs are shaking as we stand here. But I'll try to get across that highway with you.”

  Liam thought one or two would go with him, but there was a kind of groupthink and once they'd convinced themselves help was just a little ways back into town, they were unshakable in their desire to go that way.

  As everyone stood up, one man near the middle of the pack seemed to sway heavily as if he had a head rush. He fell backward—and slammed hard to the tarmac. He was one of the men who shared the ride in the MRAP earlier that same day, though Liam couldn't remember his name.

  He was holding Grandma so he couldn't run over to check on him, but another man bent down and confirmed he had passed. A couple of the men made the e
ffort to drag the man off the pavement and into the tall weeds. It was what passed for burial these days.

  Grandma softly prayed for the man as they walked toward the highway. “Goodbye, Ralph. Rest in peace.”

  “Amen.”

  The bulk of the main group was already moving up the side street, heading back to the suburban sprawl. Their fates diverging, Liam was ready to focus on the task at hand.

  As was his custom, he tried to find a gap in the people walking down the highway so he'd have the least chance of interacting with anyone. In the old days, he did this out of habit because he didn't like talking to people, but now it could be considered a matter of survival. He had to time things right because Grandma only had one speed: slow.

  A man passed on a bicycle. Rifle slung over his shoulder. He gave one quick glance in their direction; he kept pedaling.

  Suits me fine.

  He made his move after the biker was well away. They emerged from the weedy shoulder area and began moving across the first two lanes of traffic. There were people far to the left, but even with Grandma inching along, they'd clear the road before they made contact.

  This area had very few cars, and was mercifully clear of dead bodies. They stumbled into the middle, which was a grassy depression between both directions of the interstate. It was lined with a strong cable to prevent vehicles from crossing between the lanes. The wire was about three feet high.

  “Grandma, can you step over this?” He asked the question, but was positive she would find it hard to step over a shoebox given her condition.

  He had an inspiration. “Here, let me step over first, and I'll lift you over with me. When I pick you up, try to put your feet behind you, like you're praying.”

  He was able to hold her while he stepped across, then he turned around and bear-hugged his 104-year-old companion, gently lifting her over at the same time. She cooperated as best she could, and together they crossed the barrier.

  “Liam, I'm very dizzy.”

  He looked both ways. People were getting closer. He considered carrying her, but knew that was dangerous for a lot of reasons. “Let's just get over there and then we can rest. One more set of lanes.”