It took her many blocks in the urban grid before she took a chance and turned left. The rear end drifted as she made the corner. In seconds, she had her foot back on the gas and they continued into the dead.
“My God. It's impossible.” She spoke just loud enough to be heard over the road noise.
Ahead, the road she'd chosen was arrow-straight for a mile. In the distance, the number of zombies only grew. To plow through, they'd need a locomotive. Even that might not be enough. Maybe a tank could do it. Liam had seen a tank on these streets weeks ago doing that very thing.
“Oh no.” Mel pointed ahead. Liam followed her finger to some people on the roof of a small building ahead. It had big numbers and letters, as if it was the home of a TV station.
Phil replied with equal measure. “We can't help them.”
The people desperately waved their shirts, large sheets that looked like something a photographer would use for a backdrop, and many flailing arms. They needed rescue.
“What do we do? There are too many.” Mel seemed to be considering a rescue, despite Phil's statement against it. Liam wondered if they were asking him.
This is what he often called the gamer's dilemma. Fight or flight? To fight is to invite trouble for their group. Any rescue would be dangerous. Flight...sometimes it was better to survive another day without getting “involved.” He'd just rescued Grandma with the help of Victoria. He'd felt he'd risked enough for one day.
He said nothing.
Mel made up her own mind in the absence of input. The MRAP crushed more bodies while it crossed the median. It fell down into the next set of lanes and then bounced up on the sidewalk. Mel ran over several parking meters, a blue mailbox, and sheared off her rearview mirror while slamming the truck against the concrete wall below the balcony. She had pulled up directly under the waving people.
“It's up to them if they want to get on. It's the least we can do for them.”
Liam understood the risks. “But you said we couldn't stop. Won't we get overrun?”
She looked back at him while taking a pull from a water bottle. Then she spoke quickly to them all. “I'm giving these guys a chance. We aren't going to let them in. They can ride on top. We'll be moving before we get surrounded.”
Liam guessed that would be in about ten seconds.
Far from being a rescue, the pit stop became a horror show. The people up top were desperate. Their footfalls from jumping the ten feet from the low balcony were constant. Then people started to fall off...
While they listened, a pair of men in dress pants and white shirts fell over the windshield, onto the hood. They threw punches at each other. The look in their eyes was pure malice even as they slid together over the blood-soaked metal, then it turned to abject panic as they slid off the side, out of view. The stomping on the roof continued as Liam sat frozen on the inside. One of the men who slipped off the front tried to hop back up near Phil's door, but the swarming zombies pulled him back down.
“What was I thinking?” Mel asked guiltily.
They'd been parked for thirty seconds. More people fell from the top. Anyone who slid down the windshield ended up sliding off the hood too. Then someone figured out they could hold onto the edge of the roof and fling themselves over the windshield. Mel's view was about to be obscured. Sure enough, others jumped down and held onto the legs of those above.
“Lord, forgive me.” Mel stomped on the gas. A few of the people on the front, those hanging on for their lives, lost them. One woman lost her grip above them, and she and several people holding onto her legs went tumbling off the side. It opened up enough space so Mel could at least see where the truck was going. Her hands were white with pressure on the wheel. Liam imagined others continued to fall from the top, but he refused to look out the little side windows or those on the rear doors. He'd seen enough of the bad side of humanity to know the desperate survivors would do anything to secure their place on the roof.
Mel ran down a few more parking meters, a score of walking sick, got off the sidewalk, and turned the truck sharply to the right. Instead of continuing west, she headed back to the east. To downtown.
“We can't make it guys. There's just too many that way. We need to find somewhere we can wait while all these things clear out.”
If they clear out, Liam thought.
He knew the zombies had been manipulated during the outbreak so that when the big tornado sirens all over the city went off, the sick left their homes to try to escape the noise and the signal within. It was part of the plan of those responsible for the infection. They claimed they were worried the sick needed to be motivated to spread the infection, and the best way to do that was to get them moving. But those same people also conducted research in a secretive facility in downtown St. Louis which used that same technology to bring them back. This was why, weeks into the catastrophe, the city was full once again with those same infected souls.
“Any ideas where we could go would be great, guys.” Mel's tension was infectious.
Liam turned around to the audience in the back part of the MRAP. Grandma was still lying against Victoria's shoulder, though he wondered how she was sleeping through all the bouncing and...the screams. He could still hear people up on the top arguing and shouting obscenities at each other. He guessed none of the group had firearms, primarily because no one had used one yet.
There were three older Boy Scouts, and three Scout dads—or at least men old enough to be fathers. He didn't have the time or inclination to assign dads to each of the boys in the back. Right now they needed everyone to be focused on the only thing that would keep them alive: somewhere to hide.
One man suggested the Arch, as it had a large park surrounding it, as well as a subterranean museum which seemed to offer ample protection from the undead, but Liam reminded him that the Arch grounds had been bombed heavily during the early days of the plague. It was now more hellish-looking than Hell's Half Acre. The remains of the zombies, and the real humans who were caught up in the attack, littered the place. There was no way Liam would go back there.
They settled on trying to get into Busch Stadium. Liam suggested it because it was obviously a large flat area that, if empty, would provide a good way to ensure no zombies were anywhere close to them if they stopped.
No one could think of anything better. All the roads and highways out of town would be crawling with the outward bound zombies, as well as the derelict cars facing into town—relics of that last wave of refugees trying to find safe harbor at the Arch.
That didn't turn out so good.
2
Mel continued to knock over the zombies as she drove around trying to find the stadium. Everyone knew it was close, but the city looked different when sick and bloodied people were on every street corner. She drove until she found the stadium and then the service entrance, when a decision needed to be made.
“How do we get in? I can ram through the gate, but then we're vulnerable inside.”
Phil seemed ready to offer a reply, but shook his head in the negative as he peered out his window.
When he didn't offer up any ideas, Liam turned around to those in the back.
“Just ram it,” was the consensus. In various ways, and with different reasons, many in the back waved off the idea of any of them getting out to open any doors. Liam could see outside. They were right to be afraid. Though that gave him an idea.
“Hey, why don't we use the gun,” he pointed at the roof, indicating the big chaingun mounted on the roof the MRAP, “and eliminate these zom—infected—before we open the gate by hand?”
Phil answered, while Mel drove. “We only had a few rounds. We ran out of ammo shooting zombies back on the raised highway just before you came into our view. It's basically a big decoration now, unless we can somehow get some replacement rounds for it.” He laughed, knowing it was impossible.
Unless they could find an armory. Liam searched his memory for one of the zombie books he'd read in the past. He recalled
a scene where the heroes found an armory in Denver and liberated some ammunition. It would be like gold in a world where it was required reading to kill innumerable infected to stay alive. Maybe someone he knew had a line on an armory in St. Louis. Now wasn't the time to ask.
The only way for a vehicle to get into the stadium was to ram the big gate which linked the road with the deep outfield. It was the entrance used regularly by the Clydesdale's—a huge horse team that pulled a wagon full of beer around the ballpark to fire up the fans.
Mel had been driving in circles on the streets near the ballpark. “OK, I'm going to push us through the gate and hope I can break the lock without ruining the gate itself. If we can get through, and if the gate can be closed again, we'll need someone to jump out and swing the gate shut and then I'll park just on the other side of the gate so that nothing can get through.” She shouted her plan so everyone in the back could hear her.
Liam heard some low groans. He knew no one had any desire to open those back doors. Even if it meant they'd be making themselves safer—eventually.
Short of getting out first and trying to open the gate by hand, it was their best option among a precious few.
Phil craned his neck to look out the window up into the walkways and balconies of the stadium above. “I don't think the stadium is empty. Not that we can stop now.”
Mel had been keeping the speed steady, but hit something that made the whole truck bounce a foot or two off the ground and sway dangerously side to side. Several more people slid off the top and windshield.
“Dammit! I don't know what that was. Maybe a motorcycle on the ground. I keep killing them...” Liam could tell how hard it was to see anything now with zombies thick in the streets, people hanging on the windshield, and splatters of blood drying and smearing on the glass. There weren't as many zombies on the street as they'd seen at the TV station, but it was still suicide to stop or consider getting out. Except someone had to do just that if they were going to reach a safe harbor.
“That's it. I'm going for it. Hold on guys, I'm hitting the gate.”
Liam held on while looking back at Grandma to be sure Victoria had her. Victoria looked in his direction with a tight-lipped smile. She gripped Grandma as best she could. He returned the smile and focused on the action up front.
Mel did as she said. The MRAP sped down the street next to the ballpark, but as she approached the gate, she braked until she was moving at walking speed. When she hit the big metal gate, she gave it some gas to push on through. The gate made a loud plinking sound as the padlock shattered, and it seemed to be slightly off kilter, but it did open.
She proceeded beyond the gate and then stopped.
“OK, guys. You have to get out and shut that gate.”
Liam looked back. He could see the reluctance. But one of the older men braced his rifle and held his hand on the rear doors.
“You guys ready?” the man asked.
The response was tepid, but they too readied their weapons and leaned toward the back gate.
With a flourish he opened the double doors; they swung outward. Zombies were everywhere beyond the open gate, but the very first thing that came inside was a living person.
The man looked like a professional acrobat. He must have been hanging on the rear portion of the roof. When the door opened, he flung himself downward and shot inside the compartment. The man who opened the door got a shot off, maybe thinking it was a zombie.
“Holy crap!” he cried as he fell under the weight of the other man.
The zombies outside were unable to laugh at the improbability of the scenario. Instead, they advanced.
“Zombies. Shoot them!” cried one of the Boy Scouts. He too was armed. But he wasn't at the back of the truck. Another man was at the end of the bench seat opposite Victoria and Grandma. That man had been watching the tumbler on the floor, and he took his eye off the outside world.
Liam saw it all happen in slow motion, unable to shout or otherwise warn the victim. First, the zombie closed the distance to the truck, like he'd been watching the man on the top and was ready for the doors to open. Next, he mounted the rear steps—there were three of them below the back doors. Finally, he flung himself onto the man sitting by the door.
These zombies defied classification. Liam had been trying for weeks to put them into the pantheon of zombie types. They seemed to crave blood, rather than the stereotypical “brains” so preferred by zombies of old. If they had their druthers, they always struck for the neck. Somehow they knew it was the easiest way to tap into the blood supply of the victim. Liam imagined it was an ingrained superstition in humanity about Vampires. However, if an open carotid artery wasn't immediately available, the zombies would gnaw on any open flesh they could find. The one thing they didn't do—and something Liam never understood when he saw it in the movies—was tear out the insides or destroy the literal brains of their victims. How could the virus spread if the primary means of transmission was eating the victim? As with so many things the past few weeks, reality was much more mundane than the movies.
The zombie bit into the final man's wrist. He screamed in pain, and tried to pull away, but the zombie had gripped onto his forearm with both hands—staking his claim on the prized flesh.
The man underneath the guy from up top saw what was happening and made an effort to kick the zombie back out the door, but the weight on him made him ineffective in that task.
The tumbler, an unkempt twenty-something man dressed in long gray suit slacks and a filthy white t-shirt, realized the situation and he too began kicking—but instead of kicking the zombie, he kicked the man who was bitten. He too was tangled with the guy below him, but he supported himself with one arm and one leg and executed a powerful kick to the victim's face. The Scout dad didn't see it coming. With a dazed look, he let himself be pulled out the back by the zombie on his arm.
That was bad, but one of the Scouts—probably the man's son—tumbled out after him, shotgun in hand. The rest of the people in the back were momentarily stunned to silence. They heard five or six shotgun blasts before there were too many zombies for the boy to fight. Liam started moving at about shot four.
He was still unarmed, but he pushed himself against the tumbler man. He used his own modest girth and the element of surprise to catch the man in an awkward position. Liam couldn't lift him on his own, but the man underneath used the relief to grab the killer's neck and push him backward.
Liam kept going. His anger at what the man had done, fused with the fear he felt at being so exposed, gave him the strength to shove the guy right through the rear door. The man fell to the pavement, very near the dying boy and his dead father. There were about ten zombies hovering over their finds, and a hundred or more within a stone's throw. Liam just hung onto the latch of the back door, trying to comprehend it all. Closing the gate was not possible now.
Someone pulled him back in. One of the dads. Another man was on the other side, bringing his rifle to bear on the moving targets just yards away. Everyone was screaming now.
Liam focused on the most important voice in the confusion: Mel's.
“Hang on!”
3
Mel put her foot on the gas and the MRAP lurched ahead. If Liam hadn't been paying attention to her voice, he might have taken a dive when it happened. He looked at the bodies on the ground behind them, thinking how easily it could have been for him to get pulled out.
The truck ran right through a second wooden outfield wall gate. Mel didn't wait to see if they could close it. She went through much too fast. It shattered. There were too many zombies behind them to contemplate a fast fix.
“We'll do a loop and—”
Liam struggled to get over the legs of those sitting in the rear, aware the rear doors were swaying back and forth in the open position. He gave Grandma—finally awake—and Victoria a quick look and a thumbs up as he got to the front of the compartment.
Ahead, barely visible through the blood stains on the glass an
d the last two survivors clinging to the hood, Liam recognized the two U.S. Marine Corps V-22 Ospreys. But it was difficult to ascertain what was happening until Mel turned to the right, toward left field, when they got a better look through the clear window on her side.
The Ospreys had their propellers spinning, but the rear doors hung open like the tongues of two tired hound dogs. They were near first base and third base, respectively but turned so they unloaded toward each other. He saw no movement inside the cargo areas. Outside, on the dirt of the infield, a handful of Marines pointed weapons at a large group of survivors near the dugouts.
“What the hell is going on here,” he asked anyone who could see the action.
“It looks like the Marines aren't here to rescue these people,” was Phil's answer.
Liam knew where at least some of the Marines had gone. They died in the cavernous circular hotel near the Arch. It was the same place he, Grandma, and Victoria had escaped that very morning. He began responding to Phil when Mel veered sharply toward the planes.
“We have no choice. Our only hope is to get on one of those and get out of here.”
Phil gave a quick sigh. “I doubt they'll welcome us with open arms.” He thumbed toward the crowds ahead. “Doesn't look like they're letting anyone in, and I'm not sure I want to fight the U.S. military. In fact, I know I don't.”
That gave Liam an idea. Was he listed as a fugitive from his brief visit—and evasion—from the Marines? He could turn himself in. It was a smarter play than fighting.
“Get me close. I think I can get us in.”
Mel and Phil looked at him with the “he's just a crazy kid” eyes, but didn't second guess him.
Liam met the commander of one unit of Marines back at Camp Hope—the base of operations for the Boy Scouts in the south suburbs of St. Louis. The commander had been looking for the man who was responsible for kidnapping his great-grandma, so Liam was inclined to help him. However, Liam couldn't absolutely trust him, so he and Victoria slipped away and rescued Grandma on their own. Liam hoped they'd also welcome him because of the information he carried about the fate of the Marines in the Riverside Hotel: all dead.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 89