An ugly-looking plane came in low and slow over the trees in front of them. Liam knew it was an A-10, nicknamed the Warthog. He'd seen them days earlier, at the Arch. It was a squat-looking plane with twin-turbofan engines hugging tightly against the rear fuselage, in front of its dual vertical stabilizers. It was best known for its deadly accurate rotating 30mm Gatling gun. There was nothing like it.
Liam and his companions were running away from Liam's street, but they were on the same axis. The planes were coming in directly in front of them, heading lengthwise directly above his street. They heard the chain gun rounds smashing into the neighborhood an instant before the sound of the gun itself reached their ears from above. The first jet screamed overhead, passed the street, then peeled away, direction unknown. Liam knew the Gatling on the MRAP was a toy compared to the power of the lethal aircraft.
Two more were coming in similarly low and slow. Lining up the houses behind them and then letting rip with multiple rapid strings of gunfire.
“Keep running!”
The small group of his friends and family were running across the open parking lot toward more trees and a drainage ditch. A stray Gatling round or one well-placed bomb could have eliminated them all forever.
Forever.
That word continued to scare him.
His mind was trying to crack the code as to why.
So much going on.
He found himself running hard, though Victoria was staying just in front of him. She was fast.
Wow. She's beautiful, like an angel. Why can't I catch her?
Seeing her spurred a desire to pray. He recalled the first time they met, and the comfort he took from the cross hanging from the chain around her neck. He recalled openly praying on the corral back at the Elk Meadow facility. He wanted to tell Victoria all about his burgeoning faith. He realized he never told Grandma about it either. She would have been so proud.
Am I about to learn what happens after death? Will I learn about “forever,” or will I simply wink out of existence? Never know that I existed at all?
He expected to die. So much left unsaid. Undone.
More planes were screeching above him. His mind was racing as fast as his feet. The stress was wreaking havoc on his thought process. The important mingled with the irrelevant. The eternal chased the ephemeral. He couldn't control it.
He resolved to ask Victoria out on a date if they survived. That seemed very important to him as he trailed her. What would dating look like when there were no restaurants or movie theaters? What did they do back in the old days? And he would have to formally introduce her to his parents. That scared him almost as much as the barking guns above.
I need to apologize to my parents. I'm sorry I was such an ass.
Behind and above, a sound was growing. If he didn't know any better, he would say it was the stereotypical sound of a bomb falling from high in the sky, like a cartoon. Or his mind was playing tricks. Fear could do that.
It couldn't end like this. He wasn't ready.
He wanted to tell everyone about the experiments he'd seen. Reveal the different types of zombies wandering America. Share news about the safety of Camp Hope. Warn them of the presence of more government camps, including a big one downtown. He'd just escaped the city and had no desire to ever go back—maybe he could skip telling them about that one.
And what of Grandma? He tried to imagine where the helicopter would take her. To another camp out in the woods? Would she soon be tied to a gurney inside some dank tent? Would Hayes be there rubbing his hands in glee, after finally bagging the old woman he'd been chasing? She wasn't as old as Bart, but there had to be something special about her to demand so much attention. He needed to solve that mystery.
If he lived. He sprinted until his heart nearly gave out. He even caught Victoria. They were in it together.
His mental gymnastics were finally shut off when he was knocked into the muddy ditch by the massive explosion behind him.
Did I win the race?
###
Acknowledgments
The research for this second book was done on location here in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. Most of the places Liam visits I've known and frequented all my life. I chose to set the story here because I could go walkabout to these locations and be back in an hour.
Arnold, MO is near my boyhood home; its distinctive green water tower was the final landmark on northbound Interstate 55 which, as a child, let me know I was getting close to home after many a long journey. Today, that tower is a different color, but still pulling duty for children on long rides north. I should also mention my books portray the government of Arnold as, how shall I put it gently? Shady? Xenophobic? I don't show them in their best light. But fear not. Arnold, MO is a nice town and not at all likely to block people escaping from St. Louis. Right? Seriously, it's a nice town.
Liam's street and neighborhood are mostly fictional. The area where he lives in the story does have houses, and it does have parking lots large enough to land a helicopter, but Riverside Drive isn't found on any map of the city. The interchange where he meets Mark and talks to agent Duchesne is real. It is exit 186 on Interstate 55, if you ever come round. I warn you, it isn't very exciting.
Elk Meadow, or more specifically Lone Elk Park, is real. The county park is in the suburbs of St. Louis off Interstate 44 just south of the town of Valley Park. Much like Liam and his family, my parents took me there once when I was a kid, but we never went back. That reminds me, I should go check it out with my own family...
Beaumont Boy Scout Reservation is real. I'm very familiar with the cozy valley in the woods, including the surrounding terrain. Boy Scout culture is also portrayed realistically—at least as best I can describe it from going on numerous campouts and jamborees with my own Scout and when I was a young Scout many years ago. I did generalize the terrain a bit for the sake of storytelling, including the addition of a north-south dirt track cutting through the woodlands beyond the watchtower. As far as I know, there is no such route for vehicles. But there could be.
Thank you once more to my family. It takes a lot of work to produce a book, and my family has been tolerant of my late nights and sleepy-eyed mornings for several months while I finished this one. With this book out the door, it's time to look ahead.
E.E. Isherwood
E.E. Isherwood’s other books
Minus America – After an event sweeps from coast to coast, nearly everyone in mainland USA disappears. Only piles of clothes remain. Can the last Americans survive long enough to learn how it happened? Five books.
Impact (co-written with Mike Kraus) – A post-apocalyptic thriller about an asteroid slamming across the heartland of America. Six books.
End Days (co-written with Craig Martelle) – A post-apocalyptic adventure about a father and son on opposite ends of a continent ravaged by a failed science experiment. Four books.
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse – A teen boy must keep his great-grandma alive to find the cure to the zombie plague, but what if the only people immune are those over 100? Seven books.
Amazon – amazon.com/author/eeisherwood
Facebook – www.facebook.com/sincethesirens
My web page – www.eeisherwood.com
That’s all the time I have. The next book calls to me!
SINCE THE SIRENS BOOK 3
Stop the Sirens
Since the Sirens
Book 3
© 2016 E.E. Isherwood. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
A world built on the certainty God exists would
be indistinguishable from a world built on the certainty God did not.
Without doubt, there is no faith. Without faith, there is no humanity.
Prologue: Shush!
Marty awakened lying in a clean bed, inside a well-lit room. She was on her back, and felt rested for the first time in a long time. She crawled out without her usual fear of falling. A clean change of clothes waited for her; a fuchsia pantsuit. What she really needed was a bath, but she wasn't going to turn anything down.
The outside sky caught her attention as she considered changing; she was high up in a skyscraper. The room seemed clinical, like a hospital, but she couldn't be sure. She wasn't even sure what city was outside. The “North Star” of her hometown of St. Louis was the Gateway Arch. The famous landmark would at least give away the city, though it was nowhere to be seen.
She only saw the upper portions of other buildings and lots of smoke near the ground below. A blur of light remained on the western horizon. Whatever clues she could find outside might help her identify her location. She spent twenty minutes looking, but saw absolutely nothing which gave her the all-important answer.
Where am I?
Resigned to her ignorance, she took a seat in a little chair next to her bed. While rubbing her legs she happened to look down at the bed's foundation. The words “Riverside Hotel and Casino” were stamped on the side. That made it much easier. Not a hospital after all.
She laughed despite her fear.
So I'm still in St. Louis.
She had no idea what day it was. How long she'd been there. If any tests had been done. The last thing she remembered was getting on the helicopter after Liam said goodbye, waving to him, and then—
—nothing.
I'm old. I must have zoned out.
She stood up again. She felt good. Getting up from a chair was normally a laborious process. Even her back wasn't bothering her at the moment.
“Al, am I dreaming right now?”
Her late husband/guardian angel did not respond.
“OK, I'm not dreaming.”
She found a mirror over the sink in her room, and was happy to see herself for a change. Rather than the usual drooping eye sockets, her eyes looked bright. Even her skin seemed a little more firm on her face.
Maybe it was all that exercise.
She laughed out loud at the notion. She hadn't had so much exertion in decades.
“Hmm, exercise really is the best medicine.”
She winked at herself in the mirror, then returned to the large window. The world outside was as dark as pitch on the ground and in the sky. No other lights were visible. The entire city appeared devoid of it. She had an inspiration to turn off the lights in her room so she could get a better look at the stars. She allowed some time for her eyes to adjust and beamed when she finally saw the stars.
She put her hand into the pockets of her pants, fighting a chill. Her hand brushed against something foreign. It was small, boxy, smooth, and about the length of her hand. She pulled it out to get a good look at it in the glow of the stars.
She inadvertently hit a button which turned it on.
Marty didn't know what a lock screen was, but she could appreciate the picture on it. Staring up at her, with a conspiratorial grin on his face—and a few tears in his eyes—was her great-grandson Liam. He had one hand in front of his mouth, with one finger up in the traditional “shush” symbol. Behind him she could just make out part of her own head, and the rotors of the helicopter. After a few seconds the screen went blank and she pocketed the device without audible comment.
He must have snapped the picture while giving me that big hug. Clever boy indeed.
Marty lay back down in her bed. Content for the time being. Somewhere out there people were thinking about her. Trying to get to her. Drawn by her siren song. A song she continually tried to mute.
Normally she prayed for others. Health for the sick. Luck for the out-of-work. Help passing a school test. Some prayers were epic in scale, others a simple show of affection. Always for someone else. But in a rare moment of spiritual weakness she requested something for herself.
Lord, if they come to save me—
Liam couldn't help himself. He would find a way. It was already written.
—please, I don't want anyone to die.
She admitted that wasn't how siren songs end...
Chapter 1: Exodus
Eight days since the sirens.
Fifteen-year-old Liam Peters looked up from the muddy water. He and several of his companions had escaped the bombs dropped on his neighborhood by jumping into a shallow creek at the far end of the shopping center parking lot they'd just sprinted across. First the A-10's swept his block of modest ranch-style homes—their deadly Gatling guns announced themselves like the horns of the Four Horsemen the Apocalypse. They were spot on for the actual apocalypse. And then something came down from high in the sky—the colonel he'd met at the government medical camp called them bunker busters—and moved the Earth just as they reached the creek for protection. Smaller bombs chased their big brother. He wasn't brave enough to look up over the bank of the creek to see the remains of his neighborhood yet. For now it was enough to be alive.
He studied the line of survivors, searching for his parents, his friends, and his recently-mistaken-for-dead girlfriend. He saw most of them from his patch of mud. He definitely saw her. Victoria! She was his apocalyptic girlfriend. A girl he met during the zombie plague. An older woman too. She was seventeen.
They'd met less than a week ago, but they'd been through a lifetime's worth of adventures in that time. They walked up the Gateway Arch together to help the St. Louis police department defend the park below from zombies and from waves of desperate looters. She went back up alone a second time as a diversion to save Grandma. That was the first time he thought she was as good as dead. After that, they teamed up for the impossible task of helping 104-year-old Grandma Marty escape the collapsing city of St. Louis to reach Liam's home in the suburbs. They pushed her in a wheelchair to escape zombies. They rode a freight train through hordes of the undead. They broke a blockade across a river set up by the Arnold, Missouri police department. Then they teamed up with an officer of the same department as they all watched the little town implode with the arrival of the refugees from the metropolis next door. And if that wasn't enough excitement, they reached Liam's home only to find his parents had left to go to retrieve Liam from Grandma's house. He had made it all the way home only to find he had switched houses with Mom and Dad. It was enough stress to drive anyone crazy.
But Victoria was there. She provided a quality he couldn't describe. A stability. A peace. Liam knew he tried harder when she was around, and because she was as smart as any girl he'd ever known, she was able to see things from a different perspective and give him ideas he otherwise would never have considered. He had actually started to believe things were going to be OK, even with a zombie plague unloading itself all over the world.
But then she was shot.
Throughout all their adventures they were being watched, and then pursued, by a guy named Douglas Hayes. He said he was a truck driver for the CDC—a man with no job once the medical unit effectively ceased to exist—but it became clear he was more than that. He eventually showed up at Liam's parents' house to collect Grandma. He requested Liam bring her to his military truck, but when he refused—well, Victoria got shot. That was the second time Liam thought she was as good as dead. By all rights she probably would have been, but the single gunshot hit the small but durable travel Bible Liam had procured for her earlier in their travels. The force of the bullet knocked her back and she hit her head on the ground when she fell, but she emerged relatively unscathed. Liam and Grandma were whisked away before they knew her fate, so Liam had several days to lament her passing.
Now, in the brackish creek, she was very much alive. Minutes earlier she had been wearing a clean and bright white shirt and blue jeans, with her brown hair tight in a ponytail. She re
minded him of a perfect angel, returned from the dead. That angel was now covered in mud and filth. Her top was ruined. Her hair was soaked and sprinkled with debris. And her face...
Her face was a wreck. In the last week she'd been beat up violently by looters at the top of the Arch. Her face was graced with two black eyes, and more abrasions than Liam could count. Her nose might have been broken, though he couldn't say. Neither would she. In short, her face had seen some rough treatment of late. The water washed off the heavy makeup she'd applied to hide her wounds; he could see her face as it really was. He could only think of how much pain she suffered, and how it made him angry someone would have done that to her. It made his thoughts turn dark.
That is, until he saw her emerald green eyes look at him with a twinkle of mirth. Her demeanor suggested she was happy. He guessed she had a big smile on her face too, though her hand was over her mouth.
“What's so funny?”
She moved—sloshed—to be closer before she answered. “I think I broke a tooth jumping in here.” She removed her hand, and sure enough blood was dribbling down her lower lip, mixing with the muddy water already there. A large cut graced her top lip. She removed her hand completely and gave Liam a genuine smile, a big one. She had lost one of the sharp top teeth. The visage was both horrible and comical. Liam couldn't help but laugh.
“Good Lord, Victoria, you need to start wearing a face mask.”
His parents chose that moment to slither along into the conversation. Victoria smiled for them as well. Their faces reflected a more serious analysis than Liam's, but his sense of humor tended to activate under high-stress situations.
“Mom, Dad, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my wonderful and elegant girlfriend, Victoria. Victoria, this is my mom, Lana, and my dad, Jerry.”
She played along, even though she'd already spent time with them. “Very pleased to meet you. Forgive me for not curtseying.” They looked at her like she was crazy, but noticed Liam was laughing hysterically and decided it was just too silly not to laugh.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 56