And seemingly all at once, they ran out of zombies. No more were coming up their hill. A hundred or more lay sprawled on the hillside below. Some he recognized as campers.
7
Victoria and Liam studied the Boy Scout spear builders as they continued to work after the fight was all but over. The boys cranked out as many as they could, and showed no sign of slowing down.
“We can't ever be unarmed, even for a second, can we?”
Liam knew she was right, but it seemed an impossible proposition.
“Do we carry spears into the shower with us now? In bed? How can we be armed all the time?”
“I'll guard you when you take your shower.” Victoria flashed a wry smile as she said it, taking the edge off a dour morning.
As a topper it was drizzling again, making everything extra slippery and messy.
“I guess we should go help clean up the straggler zombies and see if we can locate my parents. We need to find some ammo, too.” Liam patted his shoulder strap, indicating he was talking about the rifle on his back.
They could hear very sporadic gunfire from down in the valley and throughout the woods around them. Liam wondered if it meant everyone was fighting hand-to-hand with the zombies, or they were truly gone. People around him started to relax. There were no zombies anywhere in their field of view on the wooded hilltop.
They found a group of young men who wanted to go down into the valley. No one said it, but Liam guessed they were a lot like him—they wanted to find their families. As they all walked away from the checkpoint along the ridge, Liam was surprised by two teenage girls who dropped in behind them all. They were covered head-to-toe in blood, like they'd been crawling in dead bodies. Liam thought they might be blondes, but couldn't really say for sure. They each had a spear, similarly slathered in blood.
Liam shared a look of concern with Victoria but otherwise kept walking. They followed the ridge for a while, then turned right and descended on a main trail, rather than going down the slippery slope on the side of the hill. Even so, they had to move slow. Several times on the way down, they had to stop while someone in the group dispatched a wandering zombie. More often than not, it was the two girls who would rush in with gusto to kill the prey.
I'm not sure if I'm impressed or horrified.
He didn't want to risk antagonizing them by saying anything to Victoria they might overhear, but he thought she had the same wary look on her face as he did.
As they came to the valley floor, they saw the killing floor where most of the survivors had made their final firing line at the edge of the woods. The valley looked like a tornado came through and knocked all the tents and tarps over; a second tornado came through and dumped blood over everything. It was only missing the Four Horsemen, though many dogs rooted through the abandoned tents searching for lost masters, or food.
Liam recognized several of Lee's men standing off to one side, near a group of trees on the edge of the valley. He pulled Victoria away from the others. As they approached, he saw the military men who had left on the long, circuitous route around the entire battle. They appeared clean and fresh, though winded. He had no energy to state the obvious to them: they were useless.
None of the crowd disbursed as he walked up so he pushed his way through. What he saw broke him.
Lee was dead. He'd been brought down by a zombie, then changed into a zombie, and was put down by a Boy Scout spear. His uniform was a bloody mess as he lay on the unnaturally green grass in this spot. They'd arrived just in time to hear a witness.
“...so Lee and the other guy made it most of the way back to the trees when they got surrounded by them things. They were able to fight with their guns for a little while, but it was too much. They were overwhelmed. Killed.”
Liam looked at his friend one last time, and noticed something odd. “Why does he have those belts on him?”
It was obvious once he saw the whole picture. Lee had removed his belt and wrapped it around his arm; it was lashed to the leg of his partner. The other man had a belt wrapped around his own arm, attached to Lee's leg. Lee knew he was a dead man after getting infected. They both did. They tied themselves to each other so they couldn't get up and walk away and hurt anyone. It was the best they could do in the time they had left.
“My God. He prevented his zombie self from harming anyone in the camp.”
Victoria leaned against his back, as if unwilling to view Lee's body in all its horror. “He was a hero.” She started to cry into his shoulder blade.
He stared at the bodies as people came in and out of the circle to see the fate of one of the camp leaders. He tried to summon the sadness, but his own ups and downs had drained him. He just wanted to move on…
He melted back into the crowd, and Victoria was next to him. They crossed the field, avoiding several badly wounded zombies who somehow still managed to grab, claw, and bite with whatever appendages still functioned. He thought of the two girls. They were fifty yards away going to town on the doomed zombies up that way.
They're going to need counseling.
The mangled bodies were thickest near the administration building. Lots of living people were hovering around outside the confines of the shredded structure, many with the thousand-yard stare common in survivors of a desperate battle.
He was intent on finding his parents to ensure they were OK, but he couldn't help but notice the area around the small contingent of Marines was hopping with activity. A dozen men were pulling zombie bodies from a huge pile around the wedge of picnic tables. He and Victoria investigated.
Incredibly, the scrum of zombies revealed survivors. The two wounded Marines who were furthest inside the wedge had managed to survive. Somehow, under the massive pile of bodies, they managed to hold them off. A small cheer went up as the two men were pulled from the makeshift fortress. They also found two tiny children inside the wedge. The Marines weren't content to just save themselves.
As they watched it unfold, a woman walked up next to them.
“Mom!” Liam gave her a quick look for injuries, then gave her a fierce hug.
He pulled back and looked for his already-injured dad.
“Where's dad?” He felt his stomach turn over at the depth of that question.
“He's fine. Still in the administration building. We were told we would be evacuated before the battle started, but I guess the memo got lost. It's really a miracle we weren't all killed by the big machine gun. I pulled your dad into that hallway, and into the basement as soon as shots started punching through all the glass windows on the outside. He wanted to fight of course, but he could barely hop the few feet down the steps.”
Liam looked around at the horror. “Mr. Lee's dead. Zombies.” He said it, but it was really the fault of the survivalists for starting the whole thing. Or his fault for getting the survivalists involved. Or… He saw there was no end to that thought.
“I'm so sorry. I know you two had a connection. Are you going to be OK?”
That's the million dollar question.
“Yeah, I'm good. Just going to take some time. You know?”
Nothing further was said as they all looked over the ruined campground. The administration building might be salvageable, but it was littered with holes and broken windows. The MRAP pumped thousands of rounds into the structure. He was afraid to ask how many people died inside. He knew it must be a lot. There were dead bodies on this side of the valley, just like on the far side. The zombies rampaged through here, but got chewed up by the mass of gunfire and the concentration of good shooters. The Marines took more than their fair share of the horde.
“OK, Liam. I have to get back to your dad. Be safe out here.”
Ha! As if that's possible.
“I will, mom.” He almost let her go, but he shouted, “I love you, Mom,” before she had gone too far. She turned around and expressed her love for him and for Victoria.
“See you guys in a bit,” she said as she continued her departure.
&
nbsp; After she was gone, he looked at Victoria. He pulled her into a private space on the edge of the woods, checking for lingering zombies the whole time.
“We have to go find Grandma now, or we may never get the chance. I really don't want to know who else is dead. You and me have to go out on our own. No fanfare. No nothing. Just walk out unnoticed and get it done. If we wait and try to gather more help, we may never get out of here. Zombies could swarm again. The survivalists could shoot me on sight. Anything could happen. It's you and me on this list.” He patted his pocket where the list of names was hiding. “We can't stop until we find out who put our names there. I think we both know his name. Find him, and we find Grandma.”
Victoria wore a serious face. Liam had learned to read her facial expressions and knew she was in. Before she could answer verbally, he gave her the key piece of information he knew would guarantee her assent.
He held up his mom's phone. There on the screen was a text message from Grandma. It said exactly where she was.
Victoria nodded. While looking at the phone, she solemnly pledged, “Grandma, we're coming.”
Chapter 10: Green Water
Getting away was easier than Liam had thought possible. They walked out with hundreds of others. On their way, they grabbed whatever ammo they could scrounge from the dead, as well as a few tidbits of food and bottled waters. Liam found the orange tent where he'd stashed his backpack so they had something to carry the supplies. Several of the zombies had energy bars in their pockets, like they'd all come from the same place.
“Why is everyone leaving camp? Didn't we win this morning?”
He wondered the same thing. “You and I have been outside this valley several times. We know how much worse it is out there. I bet lots of these people have no idea how far everything has sunk. They won't get far probably. If we ever make it back here with Grandma, I bet most of these people will be back. Unless…”
Liam paused, not really knowing if what he was about to say could possibly be true.
“...there's somewhere safe out there now. Maybe set up by the government? Someone's handing out energy bars. Or was. If there's nowhere around safer than this valley, we're all in for a letdown.”
The Marines still functioned, so the government had to be operating. But even the Marines were chewed up—literally, he was sad to admit—so the thought of any government agency being able to save them was remote.
“In the books, the government always tries to shore up humanity, but it always involves setting up camps behind fences of some kind. But the problems, at least in the books, are that the population of the camps always get out of hand, the plague always gets in, and the government is always too rigid and unable to adapt to rapid changes as the disaster unfolds. They can deliver pallets of water and energy bars, but if they run out of ammo, the whole thing falls apart. Maybe we just live in a backwater and aren't seeing some serious firepower being applied to the zombies, but it looks to me like this war is lost.”
He looked at Victoria, expecting a reply, but he could see the stooped shoulders and hangdog head.
“Look, I'm sorry. Yeah, things are bad. But we've survived this long. Look at what we just did! We survived those duckers and a whole field full of zombies—at the same time. I'd say we're pretty well able to take care of ourselves, better than most of these—”
He realized he was talking a bit loud around the other people walking out the front gate.
“—most of those people who didn't survive out there.”
He stopped and grabbed her arm, pulling her close.
“We're going to get through this. When I was looking at the map back in the MRAP I saw we aren't far from the Meramec River. If we can find a boat, we can float the river downstream until it hits the Mississippi. From there, we can make our way up that river until we end up downtown. We'll be right next to the hotel where they're keeping Grandma.”
He tried to keep his face bright and smiley as he said this next part. “It'll be a piece of cake.”
She smiled at him through misty eyes. “We're not warriors. This isn't natural human behavior.” She paused. “I know we'll save her. I'm just tired of always fighting. Being on the run. Being hurt. Being hungry. You don't have to lie to me. I know it won't be easy—nothing has been easy since...”
Her eyes were unfocused and distant, looking beyond him. It worried him on a level he couldn't vocalize. In the two weeks he'd known her, she always had direction. Always had the look of someone with a plan, even in those early dark days. But not now.
Time drifted on and she showed no sign of returning. Liam tried to finish her sentence. “Nothing has been easy since we met, that's for sure.”
Come back to me.
She blinked.
“Ha! You got that right. Nothing has been easy since you rolled Grandma's wheelchair over my hand. How many weeks ago was that? How many weeks since the sirens?”
The big tornado sirens may have signaled the end of civilization, and he recalled how scared he felt as they were going off, but now he craved their sound, if only as a reminder of the more civilized time just prior to them.
“Not even two weeks. Can you believe it?”
Liam worried she was going to drift off again, but instead she focused hard on his own eyes. He thought she was going to say something, but after a few moments, she merely pulled him in for a long, firm, embrace. He could sense people shuffling by on both sides, though he felt he was frozen inside an impenetrable bubble. He held on tighter.
2
Later, as they walked down the highway toward the river, he tried to steer the conversation toward something that didn't involve death, zombies, or the collapse of everything around them. It was no small task.
“Did I ever tell you about my childhood trips to the lake with my grandparents?”
“I don't think you've ever told me anything about your childhood.”
She laughed, which he took as a good sign. The dark cloud hanging over her trailed behind them instead of directly above.
“Ah well, that's why we're heading to the river right now. I spent a good portion of my childhood on small fishing boats and canoes. In fact, the very first thing I can remember as a child was being in a boat. Actually, under it. My grandparents liked to take me to one of their favorite lakes down in Kentucky. We'd load up their canoe with camping gear and then they'd take me out onto the lake, to a remote cove where we could have some peace and quiet. We'd find a nice sandy beach and make it our home for a week. My favorite activity was playing in the water, of course. And my favorite water activity was to flip over the canoe with Grandpa and play underneath. It felt spooky to see the dark water below us.”
He paused to prepare for the punchline.
“Well, Kentucky Lake is massive. Barges use the lake to transport stuff up and down the riverway. They make huge waves because they are so powerful. One day, while playing under the canoe, I heard loud screams from Grandma just as some unusually large waves slammed into us. I banged my head on the floor of the canoe and took in some huge gulps of water. I panicked. I kicked and flailed, all the while my grandpa tried to steady the canoe above us. Fortunately, the waves were big but few. As they passed, Grandpa pushed it off. Grandma was there in a flash, dragging me out of the water with a strength that sticks with me to this day. I remember being thrown to the ground and the water escaped my lungs. She saved my life.”
“Wow. Grandma Marty has always been a hero.”
“What? No! I'm talking about my grandparents...on my mom's side.” He laughed heartily. “Can you imagine my 94-year-old great-grandma rescuing me from the water?” He immediately stopped laughing. “Oh wait. I guess she did save me a few times recently.”
More seriously, he continued. “Yeah, the funny thing is, at the time it didn't bother me. It didn't prevent me from swimming again as a child. I probably swam under the boat that same day again, if they let me. Today however...”
He hesitated again, unsure how he felt ab
out this part of the story.
“The thing I remember most is how green that water was. When those waves rolled through, and I was in over my head in water, I just saw a deep, almost bottomless...green. You imagine water is black, but not there. Not that day. I regained my mind smelling that faint hint of dead fish on the shoreline. I can't go near water without recalling that incident. Even walking near water makes me a bit nervous.”
Victoria held his hand as she gave him a sideways glance.
“So, you want us to take a boat ride, yet you're deathly afraid of the water?” Her tone was sarcastic, but she asked a serious question.
In his head, he saw that green water. He tried to push it aside.
“I know. I probably shouldn't have even brought it up. But, well, I guess I feel like I can tell you anything now. And besides, once you've had zombies trying rip you apart, a boat ride seems positively quaint—even if it does scare me to death.”
He laughed to wallpaper over his fear, but was relieved when Victoria squeezed his hand.
“Don't worry. I've never been on open water. Not many places to sail in Colorado. We'll make a great boating team!”
She made like she was pulling him, trying to get him to the water faster, but then settled back down with a snicker.
“What's so funny?”
“I was just thinking that this plague has blown away even the thing that scared me the most prior to its arrival. My nightmares back then seem trivial now.”
She seemed to drift off a while. Liam let her go this time. It only lasted ten or fifteen seconds.
“I guess the plague did me that one favor. Now, my scariest memory is that first night on the run when the zombies came. It's like a dark window that blocks everything that happened to me in my life before it. Both good and bad. Every bad thing that's happened since then—going up in the pitch black Arch, riding that train, getting shot, the mess back in the valley—is each its own black box of emotions, but nothing has exceeded the level of fear and despair of that first night. Maybe I'm broken?”
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 73