Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “Don't call me Shirley!”

  “Why did I just think that?” Her mind dug deep for a second and an echo of a man speaking popped into her mind's eye. “When you start your new life, echoes of the old will bounce around like the embers of a fire, burning one final time.”

  The first body she searched was a man. He had nothing in his pockets. The second body was a woman. She wore a pleated skirt. She had massive trauma on her left side. Blue put her hand in the mess before she realized what it was. She stifled the shock of revulsion as if her life depended on it. The third body was intertwined with and below the other two. It was also a man, but it was jittery.

  She pushed off the two people stacked above him, and found a small throwaway lighter. Working fast, she struck the tab and the thing sparked, providing a snapshot of the wider room—like a bat using sound.

  “No. I didn't just see...”

  For the first time, she lost hold of her fear response. She gulped air.

  Flick. The entire space was lit, for half a second.

  Men and women stood nearby, inside—whatever it was she was in.

  Flick. She looked at the wall closest to her. It was a good-sized room, not the confined closet her mind constructed. She was in the corner of the larger space, so it felt tighter than it really was. Glad she wasn't in a tiny coffin, but distraught the room could hold an undead football team, she tried to stay positive—she was alive.

  “Am I? If I was still dead, would I know it?” It seemed too fantastic to contemplate, but she took inventory and was comforted by her breathing. “Of course I'm alive.” It was the kind of thing someone says when they wake up in a room full of dead people. The kind of dead people that want you dead.

  “Not this girl.”

  Flick. She could see a door handle—five feet to the left.

  She ran the numbers on a) getting to the door and b) getting through the door. These were very important because c) was getting eaten by zombies. Her goal was to do everything possible to avoid option Charlie.

  “Charlie Mike. Continue Mission.” It was another ember.

  Flick. Shuffle.

  Flick. Movement. A groan.

  She was almost within reach of the handle, standing among bodies in varying states of death. Some were writhing on the floor. Others were already on their feet. She tried to stay on task. The metal hook looked industrial. The kind you'd find in a hospital, an office building...or a hotel.

  “Yep, there's the little hanging sign. 'Do not disturb.' That's irony right there.” The only remaining question was whether the door was locked. Then it would be an easy out.

  Long experience told her nothing was ever that simple when Death was standing behind you.

  Flick.

  The door had a deadbolt sixteen inches above the main handle. It would have to be tossed before the wooden door would swing inward.

  She chanced one last look over her shoulder.

  Flick.

  They were only a couple feet from her now.

  “Screw this!” she shouted while tossing the lighter; she'd either escape or die trying.

  She lunged, turning the deadbolt—though it wasn't locked—while swinging the handle in a fluid motion. It swung inward, and hit a body on the floor, but her adrenaline gave her the strength to slip through. An attempt to shut the door behind her was thwarted by her slippery hands and the arms of the undead already grasping for her. She tumbled out of the cavity into natural light. The checkered carpeting of a hotel walkway rose up to meet her face—along with scores of dead zombies scattered about. A massacre had taken place here.

  On her feet like lightning, she ran the numbers. What were her chances of survival?

  “Hello computer?” An ember of a man talking into a computer mouse.

  Her vision blurred for just a moment. She became aware of something near her face—inside her goggles—just outside her field of vision. It was fast-moving green text on a translucent background. Her first impression was of a computer interface. Just thinking the word “computer” brought the interface directly into her field of view. It was distracting as she ran in the hallway.

  “So I went crazy in that room. Wonderful.”

  The multitasking began.

  “I'm in a silo? No, a hotel.” She was inside a circular hotel with a hollowed out atrium from top to bottom. Must be thirty floors. An elevator shaft on the far side went all the way up. The walkway ran all the way around the hotel with a railing to prevent accidents on the inner side, and the doors to the rooms on the outer side.

  “Of course I'm at the top.”

  She looked back at her pursuit. There were six of them. They weren't as fast as her, but she knew they were relentless. The closest zombie—a woman dressed as a nurse—had a shimmer around her. It tripped something inside her brain, and the computer interface identified the runner for her.

  >>Subject: A. Beckitswith. Nurse. Last known residence: Atlanta, GA. Employer: Center for Disease Control. Deceased.

  The interface threw gigs of data at her—online photos, data streams, social media feeds. None of it relevant to this moment.

  “Turn off!” She willed the computer to stop. It merely paused, and moved to the side of her awareness. She almost pulled off the computer goggles, they were already very loose, but she didn't want to lose them.

  Her confusion allowed A. Beckitswith to catch up. Blue stopped and planted her feet. She maneuvered the gun in her hands, gripped the barrel like a baseball bat, and swung as hard as her pixie-frame would allow. The synthetic stock made contact with A's temple, splitting the skull with a satisfying crack. Blood splashed everywhere from the wound, dousing her front side and a wide swath of the brand new carpet.

  A. Beckitswith fizzled to the floor as zombie number two approached. Another four were closing behind their leader. Fighting was in her veins, but “better part of valor” was an ember from deep inside; it insisted she run.

  While fast-jogging, she reached down to the stock of the Mossberg A590A1 shotgun—a model she knew just by looking at it—and pulled shells off the ammo attachment and pushed them into the feeder port. She only needed two because it was already carrying four shells. She put the extra back into the strap and racked the slide in one powerful up and down motion. Since it was already primed with a round in the barrel, the unspent shell popped out, bounced off the wall, and Blue deftly caught it and fed it back in.

  “Seven shots ready to go.”

  The pursuing zombie had the shimmer as the interface displayed stats.

  >>Subject: N. Dawes. Nurse. Last known residence: Chicago, IL. Employer: Center for Disease Control. Deceased.

  “I think I see a pattern here.”

  The four other zombies were quite a bit behind on the walkway, but they were also dressed like the two nurses. They were far enough back she could ignore them, for now. The lone chaser, Ms. Dawes from Chicagoland, was hopelessly outclassed in a footrace. Seeming to realize this, she flung herself over the edge of the balcony.

  Still moving, Blue veered to the interior edge and looked over. The zombie was there, propelling herself—itself—along the edge of the stout steelwork of the railing. She wasn't going faster than Blue, but it was a new variable that troubled her.

  “What other tricks do you have?”

  The red glow of the EXIT sign blazed away ahead. She could leave this whole episode behind her. Blue plowed into the steel door of the stairwell with her shoulder—and bounced backward with her head bobbling. Even the computer interface wandered haphazardly.

  Blue stumbled around, yelling loudly at the pain—and her stupidity—as she tried to regain her senses. It was only a few moments of delay, but it was a delay.

  Ms. Dawes came over the top of the railing, five feet from her. She didn't perch on the top like a cat, but she very nearly did. Blue could see the ruined skin of the dead nurse. If she were in a cartoon, her neck would have a very distinct chomp outline. The carotid artery was messily severed, and the resulta
nt blood splatter had covered the nurse in brackish liquid, now dried. Her eyes carried the tell-tale sign of the Double-E. Bloody eyes with gobs of it pouring out the bulging sockets.

  They collided, and both careened off the hard metal door. On second glance, she knew why it hadn't opened. Some wanker had welded the damned thing shut.

  The shotgun squirted out of Blue's hands. The nurse had a hundred pounds on her and pushed her to the floor. Blood bonded with blood as the pair splashed across the carpet. Blue was smaller and faster, and infinitely smarter. She played her hand at just the right time, pushing herself off the slippery nurse before she could take a cartoon-sized bite from her own neck.

  She tumbled to her gun and grabbed it as she sprang to her feet. Moving fast, she eluded the sprawling zombie and resumed jogging around the loop. Another EXIT sign was on the far side. It was the only obvious course of action.

  Chancing a look over the side again, she was dismayed to see movement on many of the lower levels. Zombies made the most noise when they knew victims were around, and the z-cophony of undead was unnerving inside the large structure.

  “Makes me want to toss myself over the edge.”

  She stopped running at the thought. She did feel as if throwing herself from the ledge was a viable plan. “I can't be more than two hundred feet up. I could land on a tree down in the lobby.” It made perfect sense. “I'm superhuman, after all.”

  Blue smiled as she imagined herself getting up on the railing, leaning over...and then she'd just keep going. The feeling was palpable. The desire to escape. Escape downward. It was the fastest way.

  She looked straight down and caught movement on the walkway below hers. A teenage girl in a bloody blue raincoat looked straight up with her blood-drenched face. She had a shimmer around her. It was both horrible and beautiful. She wanted Blue to jump...

  The computer spun up, providing real-time analysis.

  >>Subject: T. Lowry. Offspring of Z. Lowry. Last known residence: Kansas City, KS. Employer: State of Kansas. Deceased.

  “Deceased? A zombie?” Looking at the data brought her out of her glamour. Jumping from the 29th floor was now the last thing she wanted to do.

  Ms. Dawes nipped her heels, but was a fraction of a second too late. Blue knew she was coming and had time to push herself off the railing. She vacated the space even while the zombie filled it. Recovering, Blue planted her feet, lowered her head, and threw herself into the bloodied woman.

  Caught mid-turn, the zombie was off-balance. It was Blue's opportunity to push her over the edge. She watched her fall for a moment, but was distracted again by the girl below. She was now screaming bloody murder in Blue's direction. All that was missing was the shaking fist of rage.

  “Why I outta!” An image of a Stooge. An ember.

  She resumed her run and finished with a sprint as she reached the door under the EXIT sign. She didn't need to look back to know the chase would be close.

  This one wasn't welded shut. In seconds, she was through. The door opened inward and there wasn't a chance to get it blocked. She ran up to the next floor, pulled open the final fire door, and forced it shut once she was through. The powerful hydraulic compressor resisted her, almost as if it wanted her to get caught. The zombies nipping her heels reached the door a tense second after the satisfying click. As far as she knew, zombies weren't smart enough to turn handles or pull open a heavy door. “God help us if they do.”

  Sun beat down on her from above. The penthouse level was a restaurant or lounge of some kind, with a glass ceiling and a glass-like floor. She took a few tentative steps and devoured the horrible scene below her.

  Each of the levels had at least a few zombies meandering around. Some levels had many.

  “Let's look up top, shall we?”

  The access door for the roof was nearby. There was no drama walking up a single flight of stairs to the glass door at the top. It was designed to allow visitors to explore the roof of the hotel. She should have breathing room up there.

  “Again, as long as zombies can't open doors.”

  To Blue it was a joke, but something deep in her memory told her to be careful. It was often fatal to underestimate an adversary. No matter how ridiculous the notion.

  The sunny skies and warm breeze greeted her with cheer. On any other day, a tour of a hotel observation platform like this one would be filled with smiling faces and running children. The clicks of photography equipment would be complemented by the know-it-alls providing the names and history of the buildings in the St. Louis skyline.

  “Here's Busch Stadium. That's where the Cardinals play.”

  “That one there, that's One Metropolitan Square. It's the tallest in St. Louis.”

  “And if you look the other way, you can't miss the Gateway Arch. Tallest structure around, topping out at 630 feet. Robed in shimmering stainless steel so it will last forever.”

  “Pffft. None of that matters anymore. A structure's value is only measured in how well it can keep out zombies. And nothing lasts forever.”

  Her computer interface activated, as if knowing she would need it here.

  The roof and platform were unfinished. Construction equipment—including a huge crane anchored to the building—and various types of building materials were scattered everywhere. The hotel was brand new, and sat at the southwest corner of the verdant parkland underneath the Gateway Arch. The vibrant green of the grass and trees met the dull brown of the Mississippi on the far side of the park. The main area of downtown was to her left—the west. A brand new football stadium was north of the Arch, providing a stark contrast to the ancient brownstone buildings nearby. East, across the river, were factory smokestacks, railyards, and dilapidated buildings as far as she could see.

  Normally the view would be rated as “spectacular,” or “must see,” but Blue leaned in despair against the retaining wall of the viewing platform. Below her, as far as she could see in the park, people huddled together, well behind a line of armed men and women protecting them in the park.

  Her memory flooded back as the scene before her helped jog some of her missing memories. She fought her way through that swarm, into the hotel, and up to the top level. She couldn't quite recall the circumstances that got her shut into that dark room, but it was trying to come back.

  >>Subject: Battle of St. Louis. Computing...

  Unlike the data on individual zombies back inside, the interface took a long time to call up the information requested. Blue could sense the mainframe accessing exabytes of data. Geo-locations of tens of thousands of phones. Police radio frequencies. The Arch website. Shipping manifests of barge towboats plowing the Mississippi river. Automotive maintenance schedules of the cars in her field of view. Construction blueprints of the buildings facing the park to her left, and of the Arch directly in front of her. The number of cups delivered to the coffee shop in the lobby of a nearby building. Ballistics data for the .50 caliber shells littering the streets below.

  She raised the goggles, on a hunch. None of what she saw on the computer screen was actually happening below. Instead, there was just bombed-out wreckage and countless bodies being picked over by birds. Though the sea of zombies everywhere else was consistent in both versions.

  She put the goggles back on, watching what she figured out had to be a replay of what took place down there.

  An M1A2 Abrams tank's engine whined in the canyon of the street below.

  “Rock n' roll.” That was a replay she could appreciate.

  The lone tank drove through crowds of zombies almost directly below her. Sixty-eight tons of steel crushed the dead as it cruised along the few streets not packed with abandoned cars. Even from thirty stories up Blue could see the armored hulk was bathed in blood as it created a furrow in the zombie horde. It paused and the automated machine gun on top came to life; it punched into the mass of zombies around the tank—those still standing—and elicited more bloodletting. For a beautiful moment, there were almost no upright zombies within a
cone fifty yards wide near the slayer. The pause didn't last long. As soon as the engines revved up to move, the inexorable wave of the undead sloshed back into the cleared space, though more than a few tripped or slipped over the entrails of their fallen brethren. Many dropped down to lap up the pools of blood.

  Blue's stomach tried to hide.

  The tank was the main attraction, but the rest of the park was no less impressive. A cordon had been created around the entire green space. Almost a mile long and half a mile wide, the island of green was filled with refugees. The air carried the lamentation of children, likely afraid of both the zombies at their door and the loud cracks of gunfire keeping the monsters at bay. The police had created a thin blue line of protection around the park. On this side, untold infected. On that side, a remnant of life trying to escape the city.

  The computer spewed out information. As she thought about certain elements of the picture, the interface called up facts of relevance. She was catching on.

  “Tell me about the bridges. Why aren't people going across to Illinois.”

  >>Bridges: Order given, General Hodges, II Corps, United States Army. No civilians allowed to transit bridges from Missouri to Illinois. Preventative to stop infection. Additional data: Secret order, General Hodges, from CENTCOM. Terminate groups of 50 or more zombies by any means necessary. Collateral damage of human civilians authorized. All bridges to Missouri to be destroyed.

  “That figures.”

  The computer seemed to return to its original query, listing every piece of minutia it could find in the landscape in front of her. It was too much.

  “Computer. Where can I get safe?”

  >>Safety. Negative infection. Computing…

  Reams of data spun in front of her once more, revealing an answer.

  She ran from the north side of the building to the south. The computer had a green haze attached to an MRAP currently plowing through an ocean of zombies.

  “So I have to get off this building, get through those zombies, and hitch a ride?” She looked down at her ruined blouse and pants. “And all I have is one lousy shotgun and these bloody clothes.” Thinking for a long while, she realized she had the most important survival tool already on her person.