“No!”
No more than me, at least.
“No.” He repeated in a calmer tone. “We've all seen lots of things that should scare us to death, but I think we're getting used to the fear. Once you've seen the dead walking, is there really anything else that's gonna make you poop your pants in fright?”
“You're disgusting!” He could see she wanted to laugh.
“Well, I won't tell if you don't.” He gave her a wink, to which she gave him a withering look with a scrunched-up face. She was finally healing from all her bruises. Even the fake disdain on her face was a welcome sight.
“I'll tell you one thing though: my biggest fear right now is that we haven't seen the worst yet. I feel like we're heading right for it...”
The words hung in the air as they detached from the scattered group of refugees on the highway. A small river was just ahead. They made their way down a short hill next to the roadway, and arrived at the waterfront of the Meramec River.
His palms began to sweat.
3
There were no boats in view. They were along a part of the river far from any boat ramps or other places where a boat might be tied up. Up and down the river they saw nothing but the highway overpass and foliage-draped shorelines.
“It's beautiful down here.”
Many birds chirped happily, adding to the illusion of peace. Liam just wished he could have presented her with a boat, to make himself feel better about bringing her along on this journey. She volunteered, but he felt he had to keep her safe and show some intelligence. In the old days, it might be described as hot-dogging to impress a girlfriend. Today it was survival. He had to improvise.
“I guess we should start walking.” A small muddy path along the high-water mark of the river snaked away. It was empty of any foot traffic, alive or dead. That made it promising as a next step.
“Onward. Let's see if there are any boats downstream.”
Be confident!
They followed the path for an hour before it began to change into something more substantial. The dirt changed to gravel, though today it was all still muddy and wet after the hard morning rain. Several sections were eroded by wide gulleys, as if maintenance had been neglected for a long time.
The gravel path changed into a blacktop trail of about the same size. They walked together onto a large golf course nestled along the river. Today it was wild and untended.
“Wow. A golf course sure goes to pot quickly if the maintenance crew becomes zombies.” He wasn't a golfer, but he knew what a golf course should look like.
They kept moving along the river while they enjoyed the better quality path of the country club.
“I wonder if we could steal a golf cart?”
While pondering what he thought was a really good idea, Victoria spoke again. “Or what about that boat? Bingo!”
She pointed to a small white rowboat that was next to a small pond on the golf course. Its purpose was likely decorative, but it seemed functional.
“No, you're supposed to say 'fore' here.”
They laughed as they walked to get a better look. With little effort, they slid it into the water, jumped in, and paddled around the surface of the tiny pond. It was painted white, and it did show off a lot of wear and tear, but they made it work for them.
“Let's get this to the river,” she said as they hopped out.
They strained to pull the rowboat up the shore of the pond and get it going through the hundred yards of rough toward the river.
“You know this is the part of the movie where the zombies come at us just as we're close to putting this in the water?”
“Liam! Why would you even say that? I'd come over there and slap you if I weren't exhausted.”
“Yeah, sorry. My filter turns off when I'm scared. Oh. I didn't mean that. I'm not scared at all.”
But he looked over his shoulder, fully expecting that by thinking it, the zombie horde would spring the trap. She picked up on his nervous behavior.
“Hey! Zombie boy! Stop thinking that. Focus on what's ahead. Getting Grandma.”
She's probably dead.
After he thought it, he thanked his lucky stars he didn't let that one out.
But seriously, she is.
Stop it!
“OK, Miss Smarty Pants. What would you like to talk about?”
“Tell me more about Grandma. Why did you go to live with her? I mean, you've told me the general stuff. I want to know the details.”
She said the word “details” as if it were a tawdry tabloid story. Liam knew she was just teasing him, but he momentarily took offense that his past life could be in any way considered a tawdry tale.
“Well, I told you that my parents and I fought a lot this year, though I can't tell you the one thing that started all our problems. My dad and I used to be really close, but this year has just been a challenge. It's like he became a different person. And—”
Do I tell her all the details?
“—I guess there was that one time I punched him.”
“Ooh. Do tell.” She sounded like the town gossip.
“We were in our living room. He and I had been yelling at each other for ten minutes about my behavior. He said I was out of control because I went out with my friends the night before without telling him exactly where I was going and when I'd be home. He wanted to ground me for a month. A whole month! I guess I was losing it already, but then the phone rang. Of all the times to take a call, my dad actually shushed me while he answered it. I stood there seething, my anger growing at his attitude toward me.”
He chuckled.
“Anyway, when he was done I went nutso. Lots of things were said. He got up in my face. I got up in his. I...threw a dumb punch that landed on the side of his head. It was embarrassing how weak I was—I'm not much of a fighter—but after that, everything changed. My dad's anger turned to raw shock. I knew I had crossed a line. I felt so bad, my anger drained away. But it was too late.”
A long sigh.
“Instead of punching me, he walked away. He can be an ass, but he's not violent. My mom was in another room, and he went to retrieve her. It took a few minutes, but they both came into the room and informed me I would have to go live with Grandma because it just wasn't safe for me to be there. I was gone the next day.”
Liam's blood thumped in his ears with the tension of reliving the event. They were nearing the river. His relief loosened his tongue some more.
“Dad drove me to Grandma Marty's the next day, saying nothing the whole way. He could really pour on the silent treatment like nobody's business. Grandma let me in and said I could stay in the basement. I was embarrassed by the whole thing beyond words—kicked out of my own home—so I said nothing as I trudged on by with my suitcase and backpack. I spent the next couple of weeks getting over my anger for the most part, wondering why I was so mad in the first place.”
They took a short break to catch their breath.
“I recently asked my dad if he knew this plague was coming. Was that why he sent me to Grandma's. He said no, it was just a lucky coincidence. But once you've seen men and women dying in droves with a horrific plague, you get a new perspective. On what you've done in the past to people you love. On the very concept of coincidence. Something happened between my dad and I at the start of this year, and I don't think any of what followed was coincidence. On the other hand, I can't figure out why, if he knew this was coming, he didn't stockpile food at Grandma's? Why not arm me with a real rifle for survival, rather than counting on the small guns you and I had to use? Why not send me and Grandma to Montana or some huge bunker where we'd be safer than this mess?”
He nodded his head, as if pointing to everything around them.
“And if I'm honest with myself, it makes me mad to think that if my dad did know all this would happen, he deliberately sent me to Grandma's knowing I'd be unprepared. I know deep down he would never put me in harm's way, but I can't stop thinking that thought. Crazy, huh?�
��
“Not at all. I'm with you—your dad would never intentionally hurt you. To me, that means he didn't really know all this would happen. Maybe he's telling the truth about coincidence. We'll just have to ask him when we get back. Deal?”
“Yeah, sure. If—when we get back, we'll get to the bottom of this little conspiracy theory. Keep an eye out for some tinfoil for me. I'm going to make a tinfoil hat when the time comes. He likes that sort of stuff.”
Liam couldn't decide if he would be happier knowing his dad was just lucky in sending him to live with Grandma or that he sent him into the hot zone knowing he was going to be in danger. He was long past the age of believing his dad was an all-knowing hero, but he wasn't too old to believe his dad wouldn't do everything between Heaven and Hell to protect his son.
The splash of water brought him back to the moment.
They didn't waste a second. Victoria jumped into the boat and Liam pushed off as he jumped in. They both turned around and were relieved to see an empty fairway all along the river. They weren't being chased.
Not by the dead anyway.
Shut up!
4
It was nearly lunch time as they settled into their boat ride. They had lifted a couple candy bars off a dead survivalist as they left the valley—a theft for which they had no regret. They shared part of one after the exhaustion of launching the boat.
“Mmm, this is so good.”
Liam answered with a similar non-verbal vocalization.
Victoria was in the rear of the little boat, laying up against the back while looking toward him. He faced her while sitting on the single plank in the middle which doubled as a seat for pulling the oars. They could continue talking to each other while they slowly, so slowly, deconstructed the chocolate bars into tiny pieces.
They drifted down the small river without the need to paddle. This gave them the opportunity to rest, as well as observe the world passing them by. The tree-lined banks on each side were well shrouded by foliage, though they saw nothing but more trees through the gaps.
Liam pulled out his pocket knife and began to etch into the wooden stock of his AK-47.
“That's vandalism.”
“Not if I own it.” He looked up. “You remember when Phil said the guns were our Moses? At the time I thought it was just a clever saying, but he was spot on. Without guns, we'd be helpless victims back in that camp, waiting for some imaginary government to come rescue us.” He went back to carving. “Not this boy. I'm giving this thing a name. I shall call him Moses.”
He finished his carving and showed it to her. She rolled her eyes, but humored him.
“Very nice.”
“Yeah, well. It is.” He couldn't think of anything more intelligent to say about the gun, so he continued with navigation. “I think we have a long way to go on this river before we reach the Mississippi. On the map, it seemed to wind all over the place. This may take a while.”
They agreed that while things were quiet one of them would nap while the other paddled. Victoria glanced up and joked that since he was already in the seat, she would let him paddle first.
Liam was so tired he wanted to lay down next to her, no matter how cramped the space, and just let the boat go where it may. But he was disavowed of that bad idea after the first small set of rapids they approached. Not rapids exactly, but faster water as the river narrowed next to a gravel bar. He had to paddle a few times to avoid running into a large rock in the water. An easy maneuver if you're sitting at the oars, but it would be a rude awakening if they were just drifting along while sleeping.
She was out in moments. Not surprising, given the circumstances. It gave him a chance to admire her without his usual awkwardness. Her brown hair was a nasty mess, pasted with dried brown blobs of mud from their struggle up the hillside. He figured they'd all have shaved heads soon enough.
Victoria's face was angelic, despite the fading bruises and cuts he saw there. While she slept, the taut seriousness of her face drained away too, restoring her teenage beauty.
Is this what she would look like dead?
His mind just wouldn't keep quiet, but he figured it was an honest question. With so much death in the air, thinking about it nearly all the time was the new reality. She did indeed look different as she slept.
This is what she looks like in another universe, where zombies don't exist.
She wore a simple black t-shirt with blue jeans. She picked jeans, she said, from his mom's wardrobe because she had a knack for being tasty to mosquitoes. So, even though it was deathly hot—there's that word again—she opted for the long pants simply to avoid bugs. She was very down-to-earth in that way. He could only imagine what some girls he'd known from school were going through. No makeup. No hairdryers. No nothing. Of course the boys were no doubt complaining about the lack of video games or sporting events on the tube.
Continuing his overview, he smiled at the sight of her holster with his little .22 pistol on her right hip. She had laid down the AK-47 on her left side. It rode in the boat next to her like her best friend.
He turned around to check his course and held the oars up while he studied a new set of problems. Bridges were ahead.
He continued rowing, but remained alert.
The first bridge was for a four-lane highway. It was all concrete with two large piers pushing down into the dirty green water. While it would have been busy with four lanes of vehicle traffic in the old days, there was little chance of anyone being on the deck just now. Unless they were up to no good…
He propped up Moses next him. There was a round in the chamber, though he kept the safety on so he wouldn't accidentally shoot himself or anyone else. The air naturally cooled as he went under the large structure, temporarily escaping the glare of the sun. He had an urge to yell something as he went under, knowing it would be amplified in the semi-confined space, but he checked that irrational childish impulse as soon as he thought it. Having fun was the anti-survival skill these days.
He was more concerned about the next span. It was a lower railroad bridge and even though it was a hundred yards or more downriver, he could see nets and wires had been strung below—as if to ensnare boats traveling this very path.
He thought of rowing back upriver to avoid it altogether, but he ran things over in his head. If this was a trap, going backward would only get him killed. He knew he couldn't paddle against the current fast enough to escape anyone running along the shore. He'd have to try to push through using the momentum of the current.
As he approached, he noticed the nets had significant amounts of debris down where they touched the water. It gave the appearance a neglect on the part of the would-be trappers.
Closer now, he saw gaps in the nets on the far right, between the shoreline and the concrete pier holding up the rusty metal framework of the bridge twenty feet out.
He paddled furiously to that side. As he approached the nets, he had to nearly paddle backwards so he could avoid the big pier, but the current caught him and tossed him cleanly to the inside and through the gap. A small lean-to made of tarps was under the bridge, with a large opening facing the river. As he floated by, he looked directly into the hole, and saw the bottoms of a pair of boots. But he also thought he saw—
Eyes in the darkness.
He waited to see if anyone would run after him or start shooting. Or start moaning. All the while, he paddled downriver like his life depended on it.
After about a minute of hard paddling he saw—nothing. Just like the golf course, his mind constructed pursuers, but the world would not provide them.
Did I really see eyes?
He knew there were still people left alive. The river would be a natural focal point for those looking for food. And that would bring in the zombies, searching for the same.
As the boat rounded a sweeping turn and the bridges fell from view, it struck a large piece of driftwood. Victoria woke up with a jolt.
“Holy moly, Liam. You're soaked with sweat! You l
ook like you've been paddling in a competition.”
“Nah, just a hot day.”
“Oh, well do you want to switch? I don't mind paddling for a while.”
He thought about telling her to go back to sleep, but the nets spooked him. The eyes terrified him. His fear of water was a minor quibble now.
“Maybe we should both keep our eyes open, you know, for security.”
She glared at him for a few seconds, clearly seeing through him—he knew her facial expressions—but she didn't complain.
Since there was only one sitting plank, she sat next to him and worked the left oar. It was less efficient but they still made decent forward progress.
Together they continued down the river.
Come zombies or high water.
5
Working in tandem, they paddled down the river for most of the afternoon without incident. Liam felt the stress of each moment, as he expected trouble at each bridge, each sandbar, and each revealing curve in the meandering stream. Many times, he saw men and women wandering aimlessly on and near the river banks, but by staying low in the boat they managed to avoid being seen by the infected.
They also saw scores of dead bodies in the water. They were heaviest near the bridges linking Arnold with St. Louis, where the effort to contain the plague in those early days was fierce. People had fought, and died, for those bridges. Clouds of flies greeted them as they went under each span.
“We're only seeing the undead. I figured there would be a lot of people down here fishing and stuff. Is it possible no one's left alive out here but us?” He chanced a look over the side, not sure what made him think to do so.
Maybe zombies are walking on the bottom, below us?
He knew he was being irrational, but he ensured he was sitting as close to Victoria as possible in the middle of the boat just the same.
Ahead, he saw a landmark he recognized. “There's the bridge we crossed all those days ago with Grandma.” He laughed a dark laugh. “The bridge we helped destroy.”
The trussed railway bridge was partially collapsed on the south side, thanks to the big wrecking ball the police had used to prevent the zombies from getting to their side of the river. The large crane and ball were the only sentinels left to guard this wreckage, though the bodies of a few zombies wrapped in the bent girders still writhed and grabbed for them.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 74