Victoria was uncharacteristically hesitant. “Maybe we should think this through, Liam. If someone is tracking your family, they'll be watching for your message. That might lead them right to us. They'll surely realize we're heading for the Scout camp. That could put everyone there in danger.”
Melissa agreed. “Whoever is out there, they have sophisticated intelligence assets, not to mention the use of the US Military. For all we know there's a B-2 bomber up in the stratosphere just waiting to plug in coordinates to deliver its payload.”
Liam had recently seen a B-2 bomber doing just that. It was part of the bombing done on the zombie horde back at the St. Louis Arch. Day three of the collapse. That seemed like months ago.
The group argued the pros and cons for a couple minutes. All the while, Liam felt the sands of time slipping away. What if the network shut down for all eternity?
His father sat quietly. Listening. “I feel like there is something afoot here. The network came up for a purpose. Whoever did it probably has the resources, like Melissa says, but we need the network to contact Liam's phone so we have a clue where she's being held. I think we all know the risk, but I vote to try. Better now than trying it inside the camp where there are people to worry about.”
Liam felt relieved. Mainly for his dad's confidence in his plan, but also—he admitted to himself—he was glad his dad was there to make decisions again.
Everyone else agreed, or at least didn't argue. Victoria was quietly kicking a stick on the ground.
Liam got to making his call on his mom's phone, but was disappointed to find he couldn't make a voice call. He went right to text. “Grandma may not know anything about texting, but she's a smart cookie. She'll figure out how my phone works. If she has the phone on her and can access it, she can even tap to reply directly to this message.”
He sent a simple message asking her to tell him where she was. He pushed send and watched it as it left his phone. The network didn't give him any indication his message had been lost, so he took it to mean it actually went through.
Everyone held their breath, waiting for the big reply.
A few minutes went by before the group started to fidget. Liam had time to look at the low battery indicator. They'd need a way to recharge it soon. He'd probably passed a dozen car chargers back at the intersection.
Eventually they all went to doing other things. Even Liam was ready to admit they should get back to their task at hand.
“Hey, I wonder if I can text anyone else? Let me try JT.” Just before the world went to hell, JT text messaged him by accident. He alluded to the fact he and his family were evacuating the city because of the exploding crisis, but Liam was too thick-headed to appreciate what was happening until it was too late. Now he wondered where his friend had gone.
The message he tried to send stalled in his phone; it was unable to connect to the network.
“It's down again.”
His dad spoke quietly. “Convenient.” With a dramatic sigh he made as if he were looking up at the sky. “We should keep moving.”
They all returned to their walking formation. Soon they traveled the last little way to the camp. Liam kept his mother's phone in his own pocket, determined to be ready for any replies. He imagined the infrastructure of the world: the cell towers, the network operation centers, and the lines themselves. Everything had to work just right for any signals to go out or get back. And with everyone left alive running from zombies, there would be no one around to fix even the most minimal problems.
Figuring out where Grandma was located was a race against the entropy of civilization itself.
3
“Halt!” The voice came from the woods to their right.
“What's your business on this road? This is Boy Scout territory.”
The group looked at each other, then at Liam.
“My name is Liam Peters. I left here the other day with my grandma and another Scout named Drew. I said I would come back with my parents. Mr. Lee knows who we are.”
Some voices were evident, closer in the woods than they would have expected. They seemed to be arguing over what to do. Many seconds later, a young boy tumbled out of a bush. He was covered head to toe in mud and leaves, which made him blend perfectly into the landscape.
“Liam!” The boy ran up and gave him a big hug.
Liam knew he should recognize him, but with all the debris on his face it was impossible. Perhaps sensing his confusion, he let him off the hook. “I'm Preston. Remember me?”
“Of course! You don't look the same with all that camouflage. You look awesome.”
“Thanks, Liam. I've been on guard duty at this gate since you left. I just knew you'd come back.”
Preston had fought zombies with Liam in the woods of the Boy Scout camp days earlier. They lost several friends in a gruesome battle with the undead. Liam had assumed it ruined the boy, but he seemed to have bounced back.
“You guys have a gate out here now?”
“Yep, we have gun guys up in the woods. I'm more of a greeter guy down here.”
Liam suddenly felt the weight of eyes on him.
“Preston, these are my parents and my friends. Can you take us to Mr. Lee?”
“Sure thing, Liam.” Then to his mates in the woods, “I'm heading to Endor. I'll be back as soon as I can.”
Liam could see two other boys in the weeds, near the bush Preston used for cover. They gave him the OK, asked him to bring food, then went back to whatever they were doing.
When they got a few paces further down the road, Liam couldn't resist asking about Endor—the mythical forest moon in one of the Star Wars movies he'd grown up watching.
“Oh, Mr. Lee wanted to name everything in our camp after things we kids would know. He selected his main security base and called it Endor. I guess he thought we were all Star Wars fans. I would have called it Hogwarts myself.”
He wasn't a big Harry Potter fan, but the naming convention made sense. He asked about other names in the camp, wanting to become familiar with them.
“Well, after that he tried to get us to vote on the names, but we couldn't all agree on anything.” He gave Liam a knowing laugh, as if kids couldn't agree on the color of the sky. “What else? Oh, there are some groups of tents that have given themselves names unofficially, mostly silly stuff. The only one that stands out is the Umbrella Corporation. They've been going out of the camp to abandoned houses nearby and taking any patio umbrellas they find. I don't get it, but they all think it’s hilarious.”
Liam got it. The Umbrella Corporation was the name of an evil company that built a plague in a series of zombie movies and games. But he couldn't quite get himself to laugh at the joke. For all he knew, there really was an evil corporation behind all this.
“So, you guys are scavenging nearby houses for food and stuff? How are people holding up?”
Liam realized he was hogging the conversation, but no one else seemed interested in talking right now. The tension and disappointment of the text message seemed to have taken the wind out of their sails.
“Yeah, we have to. There's no more food left in the valley. There have even been a few riots from hungry campers who thought other areas were hording food. Mr. Lee set up the foraging teams to try to keep everyone fed, but they aren't coming back with much. 'Cept maybe zombies.”
“Have you had any more attacks?”
“Lots, actually. Remember those two kids who died when we were carrying your grandma off that hill? They ended up in camp that same night you left, and did a lot of damage before they were put down. After that, we had to get serious about security everywhere. No one has really slept well since then.”
They arrived at a dirt two-track path off the main road to their right, into the property owned by the Boy Scouts. Preston indicated that was the way they needed to go.
Liam's father was rolled carefully off the smooth road onto the dirt and the jostling seemed to cause him a lot of pain. He insisted they continue. He wanted
it to be over with.
“This dirt road cuts north and south across the whole property on this side of the camp. Out here where there's nothing but trees...and zombies.” He laughed less excitedly this time. “You can avoid the main valley out here. That's why we moved our roadblock out past this road. We didn't want people sneaking in our back door.”
After many minutes of walking, Preston indicated they needed to take a smaller spur heading up a steep rise. He said it would take them directly to Endor, and that it wasn't far.
They had a lot of trouble with Jerry on the hill. It got very steep near the top. They had to walk up the wheelbarrow first, with three people pushing. Then the bicycle with all the guns. That took four people. Finally, Jerry. That took everyone.
When they reached the top, Liam recognized where he was. The three-story wooden tower where he and the other Scouts had fought and protected Grandma against an onslaught of the undead. It was not a pleasant memory then, or now. The boys had dragged scores of the dead into a big pile and burned them. The ash pile was nearby.
“Liam!”
Mr. Lee waved at them from the top. He was a tall middle-aged man with a short black beard, and wore the typical dress uniform of a Scout leader: tan short-sleeved shirt loaded with patches and awards, khaki short-pants, and hiking boots. He descended to meet them. Several nights ago, Liam had left this camp with an agreement he would try to return with his family and friends, and with a little luck, with weapons. Liam stood proudly by the bicycle with more than a dozen long guns hanging off its frame. He had kept his part of the bargain.
Mr. Lee, upon seeing Liam and his caravan of goodies, offered only one statement.
“Well done, Scout.”
4
There was no time for pleasantries, and almost no time for proper introductions. After their initial small talk, Mr. Lee got right to business.
“Liam, your family is here in the nick of time. We have several problems happening all at once. Where do I begin?”
He seemed to think it over while he paced back and forth, focusing on the ground the whole time.
“OK, our main problem is food. Most of the boys are going out in foraging parties to bring back food from abandoned houses. We team them up with adults, but it's still very dangerous work for these boys, and the yields have been meager, to say the least. A lot of people are still in those houses.”
Liam wasn't surprised. Everything he'd heard about this disaster indicated it had been taking place for weeks before the final collapse. That meant people were consuming food, supplies, and fuel during a time where those items were all getting scarce, but before most people realized those things were never coming back in stock. This was most acute in gasoline, which was how most people's cars ended up stranded on the highways. They left the house with whatever remained in their gas tanks—often it wasn't much.
“Close behind food is security. We aren't sure why, but more and more zombies are penetrating our defensive ring and making it into the camp. Needless to say, we're all on edge here. Your weapons will help us reach out to cover more area out here. In the meantime, we've started on a wooden fence but haven't made much progress.”
“Have you had any additional visits from the military?” Liam was responsible for bringing the military to their doorstep three days ago when he was here. He was holding his breath for the response.
“No, thankfully that's one problem we haven't had.” He seemed to consider that statement.
“Actually, scratch that. The military hasn't been back at our front gate, but it has been on the property. I was saving the job for a proper fighting team, but as I said, things have been thin here. Do you guys want to help me bring back an MRAP?” He wore a devious smirk.
“Say what?” Melissa's ears perked up.
“Yeah, we found the vehicle stuck in the mud further along on the dirt road you just left. There's a marshy section toward the north boundary, and it looks like they were trying to get a convoy up that path when they ran into some soft ground.” He chuckled openly.
“But I need some adults with guns to go with me to help get it out of the mud and provide security from any...un-friendlies.”
Melissa jumped at the opportunity. “I'm all for getting it, but if it's stuck in the mud how are we going to get it out? Those things must weigh as much as a small tank.”
“That's what's so funny. It's down to the axles, that's for sure. But the thing is 6-wheel-drive. It's almost like they didn't try. They just left it there to rot.”
“Maybe they were off taking a leak and got overrun?”
“Or they left it there as a trap.”
Victoria hadn't been very talkative since she was out-voted in contacting Grandma.
“Victoria's right. Mr. Lee, you know we were being pursued the last time I was here, and this MRAP is probably the same one Hayes used when he came through here—actually now that I think about it, he did mention he lost an MRAP looking for the tracking beacon we took off Grandma. You put it on a deer, didn't you?”
Mr. Lee smiled like the Cheshire Cat.
Liam smiled too at the thought of that small victory. Not only did it divert his attention while Liam escaped the camp with Grandma, but it helped deprive Hayes of his main offensive asset. If he'd had it when he showed up at Liam's house, things might have ended much differently.
“If Hayes had to leave his prized pony in the woods, I'd bet anything he left some nasty surprises for anyone who happens along. He's sneaky like that. He'd call it tending the details. Victoria's right. It will be trapped.”
She gave him a casual smile.
Well, it's something.
Melissa was undeterred. “I think we should check it out. Trap or no, having that vehicle would give us a tactical edge over any intruders. We have to think about our long-term survival. It's worth the risk.”
The group talked it through, and in the end, only Victoria and Liam were against the risk of springing the trap.
Liam sensed the mood of the team; he pulled Victoria aside.
“I don't like this any more than you do, but I think we have to go to provide help for these guys. We can't split up now or we're going to die.”
“We could wait with your dad. Surely he isn't going?”
He hadn't considered that. Of course he wasn't going.
“No, I'm sure Mom won't go either now that you mention it.”
Victoria continued to look apprehensive.
Liam took a chance and grabbed her hands in front of him and looked directly in her eyes.
“I'm sorry we overruled you about calling Grandma.”
She seemed to soften. “I'm sorry too. I'm so tired of all this death and destruction. I was hoping we would get to this camp and we'd have some time to rest before we went looking for trouble again. That's why I didn't want to call your Grandma at that exact time. I do want to rescue her. I do. And now we get here, and even before we see the camp itself, we are already pursuing another dangerous goal. I'm scared, Liam. Scared of Hayes.”
He didn't blame her. She'd been shot by the man.
“Victoria, I'll back you up on this. I'll always have your back, even if we don't always agree on details of our planning and...stuff.” Not his best speech. “But you have to understand, I thought you were dead. Now that you're alive, I feel I can conquer anything. No challenge scares me. I can face anything with you by my side.”
He felt her squeeze his hands. She pulled him in and gave him a hug. With everyone else around, he was kind of glad she didn't want to kiss him.
She spoke quietly, “Liam, I'll follow you anywhere. Just don't leave me alone. I kinda like having you around.” She gave him a burgeoning smile.
That was the old Victoria talking.
“Deal.”
They broke the hug, but as they stood there, Liam found his own bravery and leaned in for a quick kiss. He was afraid of zombies, government agents, bombers, and breaking a leg—but he refused to fear his own girlfriend.
He ignored anyone who might be watching, and was very pleased to notice she met him halfway.
It was decided. They were going for the MRAP.
5
It felt like a repeat of his last foray into these woods. He joined up with a team, this time without Grandma, and was out in the wilderness in no time. He traveled with what he considered the “A” team. Mr. Lee. Phil. Melissa. Bo. Himself and Victoria. Mom and Dad were back at Endor, tending to Dad's leg. He felt OK with that, knowing they were safe. The group also had several older Scouts and a couple of adults Liam learned were the dads of those same kids.
Everyone had spears—there were plenty in the tower—and everyone had some kind of semi-automatic rifle along with extra mags and ammo. By agreement, Liam's dad shared his armory with Mr. Lee and the Scouts. The AK-47s found good homes with several of the men, though Liam kept two for he and Victoria.
The group also grabbed several of the dozen different backpacks in the tower. “We collected the things we thought we might need up here from the folks down in the valley. Nothing fancy, mind you, but we always need packs when we head out for patrols so that was one thing people were willing to provide. Calls for food never resulted in donations.”
Liam knew the problem with this whole valley was food. They had plenty of fresh water thanks to an artesian well on the property, but the forest had little in the way of foodstuffs for so many people. Even the handful of deer culled from the nearby woods fed a few people out of thousands.
The Scouts were carrying two long wooden structures that looked like ladders. Mr. Lee explained they were going to drop them in the mud under the tires and use them as grips for the tires so they could back out. He said it was the best they could fashion given their supplies.
They were also pushing the wheelbarrow with some tools and equipment Mr. Lee had assembled from the cars in the valley.
“Anyway, enough about me. Who's your new girlfriend here? Didn't you lose...uhh.” He hesitated as if he'd just driven into the wrong neighborhood.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 61