Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  Now most of the red dots disappeared, leaving only a handful of yellow dots.

  “OK, these are the ones we want. The swimmers. One is nearby.”

  “Are you saying this computer can control the zombies?”

  “Wouldn't that be great? No, Martinette, I'm saying this terminal will allow us to project emotion to one particular zombie, much like you could sense the thoughts and emotions of Victoria and Liam on the rubber boat. Only this time, the link isn't with someone close to you, which is why we need this computer to focus it.”

  “But the zombies are dead. Right?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But they still have primitive functions requiring low-level activity in their brains. Motor control. Hand-eye coordination. Hunger. That sort of thing. They may look evil, but they're not possessed demons. They're more akin to rabid animals. Those animals are filled with primal needs. All we're going to do is give a nudge toward one of those needs.”

  He began entering a long sequence of characters, much too fast for Marty's tired eyes to follow. It took several minutes, leaving her itching to ask what was taking so long.

  “I sense your concern, but time doesn't flow the same when the brain is near death. Trust me. Rest assured this little computer is merely symbolic. Your brain is the real engine I'm manipulating. I'm working as fast as your brain can process data.”

  “Oh dear. I'm afraid my old brain isn't much good for that. This is the first time I've used a computer.” She gave a little chuckle despite the circumstances.

  “Don't worry about that. Your brain is already a supercomputer, even if you don't use physical computers.”

  “OK, I think I've got everything lined up. Sadly, the element of chance cannot be factored out of my equations. This is, as you would say, a best guess.”

  “I guess you can't be a Devil or an Angel if you aren't all-powerful. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.”

  “Not even God would want to eliminate random chance. If that were true, nothing would be able to happen without His express consent. Why would a supreme being would want that kind of minutia to tend? To say nothing of free will.”

  “So you could still be a Devil. Oh my lands.”

  “I guess you'll just have to find out when you find out, Martinette. Are you ready to roll the dice?”

  “I don't gamble.”

  “Fair enough. I'll do it.”

  He simulated a cup of dice being tossed. To Marty's dismay, more and more dice spilled from the cup. It was a never-ending stream of six-sided chance cubes coming out of an impossibly deep cup.

  All she could do was pray.

  2

  Liam was in a dream world. He opened his eyes during his underwater journey, and was dismayed to look down into the greenest water he had ever seen. Light filtered down through holes in the pile up above, into the murky water, and it stretched down below them. His eyes burned in the dirty water, but he didn't figure he'd be needing them if he was dead.

  From below, he saw something impossible.

  I say that word a lot these days.

  An impossible hand reached up to him.

  The hand was attached to an arm, which was connected to a body. The thing's face was death itself. Black eyes. White skin. Nondescript black clothes.

  Drowning and death by zombie. What a way to go.

  He hoped Victoria had her eyes closed so she didn't have to meet her fate like this.

  The zombie swam directly at them, even as the current pushed them downriver underneath the monstrous wreck. Liam imagined himself kicking it, but the current was too strong to move his legs.

  The zombie rammed them. Instead of chomping a leg or hanging on to get a better place to bite them, it kept kicking upward. It changed their trajectory in the current. Instead of going down or sideways in the turbulence, they went up.

  His head popped up in a cave of sorts. The zombie still pushed upward, even though they were now half out of the water.

  “Victoria!”

  “How did you do that?”

  He had no time to respond. He wondered what he should do to the zombie swimming against him like a robot. They were all intertwined in some metal supports from the downed bridge. He grabbed on as best he could. The concrete deck was in pieces but the flat surface was just behind them.

  Should I kick him away or say thanks?

  It felt horrible but he kicked the zombie away. It lost contact with his body, squirted by Victoria—giving her a terrible fright—and fell under the surface going toward the back of the small cave. It kicked the whole way.

  I'm so sorry. And thank you.

  “We're still alive, Liam. This is a miracle.”

  Thinking of the mysterious zombie, he wanted to agree. It did seem like a miracle, or else really good luck.

  Victoria responded, “Thank you, God!”

  He didn't have time to solve it. Liam used the support beams to work himself around the tangled mess of crumpled superstructure, toward the opening up to the surface of the wreck. Victoria followed.

  “You saw Duchesne die, right? That wasn't just a dream, was it?”

  Liam replied to her. “He was—”

  He paused. Duchesne definitely fell directly into the path of the incoming juggernaut, but he'd read enough books to know that didn't mean anything.

  “He's most likely dead. Though I'd have told you we were most likely dead, too, if you had asked a minute ago. I think we're safe for the moment.”

  Inwardly, Liam knew that last bit was a stretch. None of them were safe in the post-collapse world, but more immediately, they were in mortal danger just for being on the shifting river wreck. They still needed to find a way off.

  He reached the sunlit hole in the broken bridge deck above them. There was plenty of room for him to crawl through and slide onto the surface. He landed on the side of a flipped barge, floating as part of the mass of junk. More free-floating barges were crashing into the blockade. They needed to get off the drift.

  He could see a way through to the nearby roof where he hoped Grandma was still waiting for them. “Come on, girlfriend.” He was momentarily giddy at being alive; at being with her.

  The grinding sound of all the shifting pieces of the bridge was unnaturally loud. He gained some height as he climbed the ribbing of a shipping container to get a better view of the whole wreck. He reached the top and figured out he was almost precisely at the point where he'd fallen in. The boat that saved him from Duchesne was directly ahead of him. It consisted of three barges in a row pushed by a burly tug that threw up huge rooster tails of propeller churn behind it. Like an icebreaker, it was intentionally pushing itself into the immovable object...

  “Victoria, we don't have much time. Look!” He pointed to the ship as she joined him on the container's top, though it was impossible to miss.

  Victoria took in the scene for a few moments, and seemed more concerned than Liam about the location of the roof—now in line to be run over. She didn't see Grandma where she'd left her.

  For a panicked moment, he thought she was also sucked under by the big wave. Nothing could have survived the impact.

  He took another quick look upriver. There were dozens of loose barges coming in their direction. They bounced off the piers of the bridges upriver like billiard balls redirecting after a powerful break. The huge logjam on which they stood couldn't last forever with such overwhelming weight bearing down on it.

  “There she is!” Victoria screamed in joy. Grandma had moved from her roof to the inside of a partially crumpled shipping container. She was out of the direct path of the towboat. A zombie was sprawled on the debris nearby, though it wasn't moving very much. Victoria started to climb down. Liam took a few more seconds to get his bearings on Grandma before following. He also looked toward the Missouri side, hoping for an obvious escape route. The Illinois side was not an option because of the efforts of the powerful ship trying to cut open the blockade.

  Back to St. Louis we go.
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br />   3

  Victoria reached Grandma a few moments before him. They hugged each other like long lost friends. Liam was tempted to try to make it a three-person hug, but opted to save the celebration for terra firma.

  “I saw you kids in a dream. You were swimming.” She let out a weak laugh. “I thought I finally bought the farm.”

  Liam and Victoria traded concerned looks.

  “Yeah, we did go for a dip.” Liam wasn't ready to tell her how they were saved, though at some point he wanted to sit down with her and have a long, peaceful chat about everything he'd seen and done the past couple weeks. For now, the threats of the moment overshadowed any deeper discussion.

  Liam let slip a bad curse word. He couldn't help himself once recognized the identity of the zombie on the ground at his feet. With a closer look, he determined he wasn't infected.

  Duchesne wasn't a zombie, but his body was ruined and bloody like one. Apparently he'd been tossed up onto the wreckage by the same giant wave which sucked them under. Instructing Grandma to stay put, he and Victoria moved closer to the injured man; he was on his back staring at the sky very near the water's edge. As they arrived over him, his eyes focused. One of his hands was nearly severed and he had many lacerations along that side of his body. The wooden planks beneath him were stained red.

  “Liam. Help me. You must. I can save your Grandma.”

  Liam was horrified to realize he wanted to help the broken man. Despite everything Duchesne had done. Despite the fact he had to be lying. He tore off his t-shirt and tried to staunch the bleeding.

  He spoke to him in a strained voice. “Did you infect my Grandma? I have to know.”

  His only reply was a bloody-lipped smile. One of his eyes was swelled shut and he looked pale.

  “Liam, no. You can't help him. We have to get Grandma to safety. You have to let him go. There is no cure.”

  Turning up to look at Victoria, he said, “But he'll die if I don't help him.” Turning back, he continued, “He has to save her.” He felt the tears welling up behind the anger.

  “He's dead already. As much as I hate him, I wouldn't let him die if I could save him. Out here, on this floating nightmare, nobody can.”

  “She's right, Liam. She's honest. I like that about her.” He tilted his head slightly in her direction, “And because you were honest, I'll be honest with you. Hayes put a tracking device in your phone and we've been tracking your movements all this time. Cool trick, huh?”

  “I already told you it was always off. I was saving it for the day phone service returned so I could call my parents.” She had a defiant look as she stood above him.

  “We tracked you whether it was on or off.”

  “But when did you put it in? I never let it out of my sight.”

  Duchesne gave a wet laugh. “You'll have to ask Hayes. Not my concern.”

  He kept talking, with increasing difficulty. “Liam, listen. I need you.”

  Liam warily moved closer, still holding his bloody shirt on the man's side in a futile attempt to prolong his life.

  “History will look unkindly on what we did for our country.” He was glassy-eyed as he spoke. “It's up to you to set the record straight. We were building a better country so we could lead the world as we were meant to do. This was your country. Your tribe. Tell everyone the truth of it.”

  Liam was shocked at the audacity. His reply reflected his anger.

  “You mean the truth about how you unleashed a plague so you could eliminate your political enemies? You did all this to kill women like my Grandma Rose. Are you nuts?”

  Another wet giggle. “No, listen. We were making something better out of the world. People like your dad were the ones ruining it. You have to see that now…”

  “Wait. What? My dad?”

  “Oh.” He coughed for twenty or thirty seconds, then tried to catch his breath for an equal amount of time. “I may have left that part out.” Blood drained from the side of his mouth and he smacked his lips to clear it.

  Liam felt himself walking the razor's edge between sobbing and stabbing the man in the heart. He did everything he could to stay in between the lines.

  “Please. Tell me what my dad has to do with all this. Was he—”

  The conspiracy gene activated.

  “—NIS?”

  Duchesne coughed out a spray of blood with his laugh, forcing Liam and Victoria to recoil. The bottom half of his face was splattered with it. Still, he motioned with one finger for Liam to get closer. He drew him in all the way to his face.

  His voice became a whisper, “The NIS would never...take a traitor like your dad.” He made a weak effort to spit on Liam, but he saw it coming. He moved back to safety.

  “Traitor? You're the traitor. You betrayed the whole human race!” Liam pulled back his shirt, causing a slight whimper from the dying man.

  “But I never betrayed the United States of...” He trailed off. His eyes rolled up into his head.

  The situation reminded Liam of another death he'd witnessed back at Elk Meadow. Colonel McMurphy came to him after he was infected and just before his death asked him to consider finding another camp so they could test Grandma. He'd already resolved never to go near a government camp again—a decision which proved correct. At the time, Liam said nothing, not wanting to take a dump on the man's last words. This time however, he was ready to unload.

  “Not only am I going to do everything I can to get the history books correct, I'm going to write my own book and tell mankind about your plague. I'm going to do everything I can to expose you to the world as the piece of filth you are. I'll kill all your NIS people for causing this. I'll destroy your fortresses. I'll raise an army. Your name will be synonymous with coward. Mankind will spit at the mere mention of the name Duchesne. I will—”

  He went on for many seconds before Victoria interrupted him.

  “Liam. He's gone.”

  He just stared. He had so much more to say. So much to unload on the man who, on the face of it, was directly responsible for every piece of this broken bridge, every zombie walking the Earth, and every dead person now fading from life's story. He could hardly accept the impossibility that his life would intersect with the one man responsible for bringing the fictional world of zombies to his own doorstep. It gave him some comfort to know whatever else happened today, at least this man was dead. He really was going to write a book someday. He willed himself to remember Duchesne's last words for the final chapter.

  Grandma broke his introspection. “Liam, he's dead. You've got to go.”

  Liam looked up at Grandma and his eye caught sight of a small black drone many feet above her. He didn't linger on it.

  “OK. We have to keep moving. This whole dam is about to collapse.” He pointed over his back at the barge still assaulting the debris and the multitude of loose barges coming down the river behind it.

  “I'm exhausted. I can't even move. Doctor would probably say I had a stroke.” She laughed, but not convincingly. “I don't think I can make it to the shore from here.” She pointed to the Illinois side.

  “Sorry, Grandma. We have to go that way.” He thumbed toward the Missouri side, which was twice as far.

  “Oh dear. You two should go. Get to safety and I'll take my chances here.”

  He experienced deja vu. Almost two weeks ago, he was faced with a similar dilemma as he and Grandma talked about leaving the city or staying in her home. At the time, Liam had thought about leaving her, if only so he could run and get his dad to take care of her. Now, the notion of leaving her never crossed his mind. He wasn't going to sacrifice all the miracles that helped her survive this long.

  “No, Grandma. You're always coming with us.”

  Rather than discuss it, he grabbed Grandma around the back, and motioned for Victoria to do the same. With a helper under each arm, she hobbled along the shifting debris. He couldn't help but feel the weight of the decision, once made. Looking ahead, it was daunting. He couldn't look behind now, but
the chugging engines of the towboat, the overarching aroma of death, and the creaking and crunching sounds and vibrations of the garbage and debris under them was overpowering. As emphasis, the towboat captain began to lay on his air horns.

  “My heavens, more sirens.”

  Liam was encouraged to make something happen. “Move up there. That beam looks like it reaches that other flipped barge. We can run along that if we can get up there.”

  They moved up, slowed to a crawl when they had to balance along the shaky beam. Some of the loose barges slammed into the blockage directly in front of them. Without a powerful tug behind them, they didn't have enough force to break the blockade, but as they piled up one after the other, they pushed the existing debris further and further upward toward them. It also increased the vibrations throughout the wreckage.

  Victoria slipped as she reached the hull of the flipped barge. She stabilized herself and had a look of dismay at how close she'd come to falling over the side. The slimy bottom of the overturned barge was a considerable obstacle. They paused while trying to determine what to do.

  Victoria asked, “Can we slide down it?”

  It was canted slightly toward the downstream side of the mountain. Falling off the backside would put them back into the core of the wreckage, but there was no way to see what they'd be falling into. Victoria and Liam might get lucky, but Grandma probably couldn't handle such a ride.

  “I have an idea. Grandma, I'm going to lay down and you're going to lay on my back. Hold onto my neck like a piggy back ride, OK?”

  He figured she would argue as she was wont to do, but this time she said nothing. It took a minute to situate herself, but they got it worked out. Liam moved along the edge of the barge, using the angle of the bottom and side of the hull as a way to hang on as he moved from the front to the back end. Since his head and arms were higher than his feet as he slithered along, he was able to prevent himself from sliding down what was essentially a slimy piece of playground equipment. His bare chest and pants were a disaster, covered with slime and who-knows-what from the river, but at least they made progress. Victoria did the same, using her ruined white shirt and jeans to slide along.