He pulled the data chip out, then placed it back into the slot.
Still, what he saw was not right.
“Um. I think we have a problem.”
He clicked the keys, moved the mouse, and cycled through menus. Finally, after many long minutes and several queries by Victoria, he knew what had happened.
“Our data just got erased.”
Victoria, not one for cussing, simply said, “Well, poo.”
Chapter 5: Oxbow Lake
Liam set the laptop aside and looked out into the yard. He felt as if he'd just been scammed and had his bank account drained. There wasn't a thing he could do about it.
After a suitable reflection period, he spoke up. “We have to go there. To the mine. It's got the answers we need. We know that much from what we saw.”
They discussed logistics for a long time, then got into the details. Liam felt better, despite the erasure of his data, the more they talked about tangible advancements of their plan.
“What do we use for weapons?”
“I don't think anyone is going to hand us some guns,” though he recalled people handing out guns back in the early days, at the Arch. “We have to get to work making spears. I want us to have something to defend ourselves with if we go back out there.”
Victoria seemed to take it in stride. She got up and scoured the yard for the type of straight wood they'd need for a spear. He was pleased to see she didn't need to be told what to do. He looked for his own while they chatted.
“You know, you could stay here. Watch over Grandma.” He said it with as much nonchalance as he could muster, though he definitely wanted her to come with him so he wouldn't be alone.
“Oh really? I thought she was going with us.” She said it while looking away from him, into a dense bramble. She was in the process of yanking out a large downed branch that had been in there for a long while.
Could they take her up the river, over to the…No, it was madness. He was absolutely sure of that.
“I know you're joking, ha-ha. We can't risk taking her outside the wire again unless we have both a tank for transportation and a destination defended by an army.” He laughed. “No, she stays.”
He pulled out his knife and got to work on the branch. He felt it was adequate for a nice-sized spear. Victoria dragged over her find.
“Too dry. You need one that isn't so brittle.” He could see the wood was too old.
In time, they both found the pieces they needed and Liam got busy with the whittling. They sat under the shade tree as he worked.
Fifteen minutes later, he was satisfied with his creation. “Here we go. My first Hope Spear in Cairo, Illinois.” He bent the dialect, just as she had earlier. “May you never need it.”
Fat chance of that.
He passed the spear to her, taking her raw stick to begin work on the companion. As he put his head down, he lost track of time. When he looked up, Grandma was sitting inside the screened-in porch, watching them.
He waved, and Victoria's eyes followed to see who was inside.
An awkward silence passed between all three. Finally, Grandma cleared her throat, then began, “I can tell you two are thinking about leaving.”
He looked at Victoria with a little smile. Her face said, “She's got us.”
“It's OK, I know. I just know. I see these kids inside,” she nodded toward the interior of the home behind her, “and I see you two out there. The difference is night and day. I have to say it doesn't please me to see you go, but someone has to do it. I missed my chance by a few years.” She gave a hearty chuckle. At 104, she probably missed adventuring by a few decades, though that didn't stop her from being active during their escape from St. Louis.
Liam increased the speed and pressure he applied to the spear now taking shape out of the raw wood. He felt his emotions reaching up to him. He didn't want a sloppy goodbye.
“We'll leave tomorrow. It's getting too late in the day to be doing anything silly like walking out of a walled fortress into—”
He checked his bravado. He wanted to be brave for Grandma, but that was hard to do when there were so many monsters outside. He could claim to be unafraid of what was out there. Explain how prepared they were. But none of it was true, and she of all people knew the truth. On paper, it was really dumb to leave.
“—into a world run by people like Hayes and Duchesne.” Somehow it felt less intense to think about the dangers posed by men than it did the mindless and insatiable zombies. At least men can sometimes be reasoned with.
“I understand. I'll be praying for you. Do you know how you'll get up north?”
That was a hurdle he'd hoped to tackle tomorrow. There had to be convoys or something going north. Cairo wouldn't have cut themselves off completely from the rest of the country.
But before he could explain what he didn't know, a voice called out from the nearby bedroom window of the house. It was the same room Liam vacated earlier in the day. He thought back and recalled the springs of the bed above him were depressed. Someone was sleeping up there...or listening.
“I know how you can get to St. Louis. But you have to take me with you.”
It sounded like the voice of a child, though the dark shadows of the backyard made the face in the window nothing more than a vague outline.
“I won't say anything more unless you promise.”
Liam looked at Victoria. She shrugged, mirroring his own thoughts.
He put on the appearance of thinking about it for many seconds while he whittled, but knew he was going to agree.
He felt the drama in the moment, so went with it. “We'll be a terrific traveling triad.”
As he waited for the girl to come out, he realized how stupid it was to accept someone into his group, sight unseen. A proper fighting unit, in the spirit he was used to with his online game World of Undead Soldiers, included people with diverse skills so any encounter could be tackled by the special abilities of the team. Division of labor, and all that. What skills were they about to pick up? That question was better answered before the invitation to join.
Liam did not feel warm and fuzzy when Grandma called out, “No, it can't be you!”
2
Liam knew her. It was the girl he'd saved from the top of the MRAP. She was black, but fair skinned. More of a mixed race. She had her hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail. As she turned in the large screen door to talk to Grandma, he could see her hair went all the way down to her waist. It was wound in braids and had an ostentatious blue bow near the top.
“You got a problem with me? Why can't it be me?”
Her tone was forceful, but not malicious.
Liam stood up, holding his spear. It was almost done, except it didn't have a deadly point yet. He wanted to get a better look at the girl. At that thought, he turned to Victoria to see her reaction. She was intently watching the screen door too.
When he rescued the girl from the roof of the MRAP, she hadn't said anything. He was able to coax her from her hiding place, then he fell, then she ran away. Seeing her again forced him to try to recall details about her, but he couldn't. All he could remember was that she was soaked head to toe in blood and appeared small. Nonetheless, the fact she was unable to get herself to move to save her own life did not inspire confidence.
Grandma looked out the screen to Liam. Her face illustrated a question for him, but he didn't know what.
With a sigh, she turned back to the girl. “I saw you in my dreams. I saw you climb from underneath some dead bodies in a pitch dark room. I saw you running from the zombie inside the Riverside Hotel. I saw you looking out over the army of infected down below. I saw...”
Liam could only watch as Grandma appeared to strain hard to remember. He had no idea what she was talking about, or how he could help her. He motioned to Victoria and they both closed the distance to the screen door.
“Oh, I don't know. I kind of lost you after that. But I saw you when Liam got you down off the MRAP. You left him lying on the ground. You
ran to save your life. Not his.”
The girl turned to Liam. “This is your Grandma, right? Is she messed up in the head?”
Liam vigorously shook his head in the negative.
“Hmm, well she seems messed up. I don't remember any hotel. I think I would remember waking up in a pile of bodies, don't you?” She too seemed to strain her face, searching for a memory, just as Grandma had moments earlier. “But I...”
She turned to face Liam and Victoria through the screen. Liam got his first good look at her. She was about his age—an older teen. She'd been given a bright green pair of jeans; he knew they weren't hers because she had been wearing ripped slacks when he rescued her. The one thing he noticed on her body was all the scratch marks. He assumed they were caused by the other survivors up on the roof during the fighting for position up there.
She was short. She appeared as a normal adult height while standing next to the hunched figure of Grandma, but she was probably quite a bit shorter than Victoria. Under five feet. Her hair was jet black and pulled tightly back over her head, the blue bow peeked from behind. Her face was round and pretty, with soft eyes.
“I can't remember how I got on top of that truck. I just kind of woke up there.” She looked at her arms. He could see all the scratches on them, even through the mesh of the screen. Her face had lots of small scratches too, though they weren't as serious.
“And I don't think I would have left you lying on the ground. I just didn't see you.”
Victoria made some kind of sound in her throat.
“Look, I'm from St. Louis. My sisters are there. My family is there. I'd really like to get back.” As she spoke, she opened the screen and stepped through just as a small orange tabby tried to escape with her.
Liam watched with amusement as the cat pawed at the screen, though his attention returned to the girl when she walked right up into his personal space.
“Please. I'll be quiet. Just get me to St. Louis and I'll get out of your hair.”
He wanted to tell her flat out she wasn't going to go. She'd left him on the ground…
Or, maybe she's telling the truth. She didn't see me.
His head was a wreck when he fell off the truck, so he had no idea if the girl was telling the truth. There was a lot going on during the evacuation. And, he couldn't overlook the fact she said she knew how to get there. For all her shortcomings, she was one step ahead of him.
“If we go with you, how do you plan to get us there?”
“Oh no, that's not how it works. I tell you now, and then you run off and leave me. That's how it happens on TV.”
Liam hadn't thought of running off, but he allowed he might have done it in this circumstance.
Victoria stepped closer to him, too. “You can go, but Liam's in charge.” She said it with a commanding tone he'd not heard before.
The two girls studied each other. Liam felt immediately uncomfortable. But it only lasted a few seconds.
“Believe me. I'm no leader. Just bring me along and we'll all be happy.”
The girl smiled at Victoria, and she mimicked the emotion, but her eyes told Liam the full story. A wary distrust. He knew trust was a rare commodity these days. There were just as many bad people using lies to get ahead as there were good people willing to believe those lies. He took the opportunity to remind himself to ration out trust like water in the desert.
Liam took a step back, to get himself out of the girl's space. “OK. How soon can we leave?”
She turned to him with a genuine smile. “Get your sleep. We'll leave first thing tomorrow. We'll be in St. Louis by dinnertime.”
Liam doubted there was a home to return to, or that they could reach St. Louis in such a time frame, but nothing was perfect anymore. He knew better than to argue.
She was walking back inside when Liam realized he'd overlooked something important. “Hey, what's your name?”
The girl stopped at the door. “My name's Blue.”
3
The morning went by in a whirlwind. Liam woke to find a piece of paper had been placed in the collar of his shirt. It simply said to walk east until he reached the water. Blue would be waiting. It ended with a time: 9:00 a.m.
He spent a few minutes saying goodbye to Grandma. The previous night they'd had plenty of time to catch up, share details of their stories over the past few weeks, and prepare for their time apart. Victoria was by his side the whole time. They separated with a warm three-person hug.
“We'll be back as soon as we can, Grandma,” were his final words.
He arrived at the docks walking hand in hand with Victoria. When he first saw Blue on the deck of the boat, he was impressed by how delightful she looked. She wore a light blue short-sleeved top with some kind of ruffles on the ends of the sleeves. She still had the same green jeans, but they fit her very well. She got lucky. His own cargo pants required him to super-tighten his belt to hold them up. Victoria's jeans—blue—fit her very well too.
For just a fraction of an instant, he imagined that Blue liked him and was going to try to wedge her way between he and Victoria—bringing drama into their already over-dramatic lives. But the thought receded as quickly as it surged. There was no way on God's green Earth he was going to betray what he had with Victoria. He'd die for her. They'd even agreed that one day—when the current crisis ended—they would be happily married together. No amount of pretty girls was worth the one sure thing in a world of infinite chaos.
He tightened his hand around Victoria's and pulled her to him. He'd evidently surprised her.
He tucked his spear under his free arm so he could hold her with both hands. “I don't know what lies ahead, but we may not have an opportunity to be alone for a while. I want to tell you that I'll be there for you. If you're taken again. Shot again. Dragged away by zombies or bad guys. I will die trying to get to you.”
A wide smile. “Why Liam, that's the nicest thing any boyfriend has ever said to me.” She was being playful, then turned serious. “But the world is so dangerous I think I'd rather someone tell me that instead of something sappy and romantic.”
He thought that was a rebuke. His eyes must have betrayed him.
“No, no. I didn't mean it like that. The only thing we can count on out there is each other. I mean it when I say no one has said anything nicer to me. I've never had someone I can...count on...absolutely like I can with you. Looking back at boyfriends in my life, I don't think any of them would have been able to hang with you in the Zombie Apocalypse. Makes me wonder what I saw in them in the first place.”
He didn't think he was anything special. He certainly wasn't that strong. He wasn't a genius. He wasn't a fighter by nature. Most of what made him “special” was his desire to not be a dope in front of her. He worked extremely hard at that.
They briefly kissed and then separated before they walked up the ramp to the boat. It was irrational, but he hoped Blue saw them together. He couldn't afford the distraction, but having a pretty girl on his arm stroked his ego in a strange new way.
Is this what married men feel like?
As they reached the boat, he pledged to stop thinking such thoughts and just focus on the mission. He tried to look at it as a military operation.
First, travel. Second, find the quarry and get inside. Third, do something. He called it X because he didn't really know what he'd find. Then, his plan went into the weeds: do Y and Z and then somewhere down the line get back here to Grandma and report the findings.
And it all started with the pretty girl.
No, she's just a girl, not pretty. At all.
“Hi guys. Welcome aboard,” Blue said with great cheer. “You can lay your weapons up there,” she pointed to open floor near the front. Some other gear was stowed there.
“Thanks.”
The boat was about thirty feet long. It had a large compartment surrounding a couple seats right in the middle. A steering wheel and radio equipment was on the dashboard in front of the right-hand seat. The other sea
t was on the left side of a small aisle to the front of the boat. There were buttons and levers on a dashboard panel in front of that seat too, though its function wasn't obvious.
As he looked around, Blue continued, “This is a Corps of Engineers service boat. They use them to inspect survey markers, buoys, and other equipment up and down the river. This one makes a regular run up to the north, and then it comes back.”
“How the heck do you know that,” Victoria asked.
“Hospital. I went in with you.” She smiled at Liam. “I met the captain while I was there. We got to talking. He lost his partner a few days ago.” She looked around at the sound of someone approaching.
“Here he comes now.”
The man was a caricature of a salty old sea captain. He was tanned to the point of being cooked. He wore a loose button down shirt that may have been a Hawaiian shirt at one time, but now was faded almost to white. His jeans were covered in grease or something grease-like, though he evidently tried to wash it out from time to time. The large work boots and faded camo boonie cap completed his ensemble.
He had thick facial hair which was mostly gray. His thick eyebrows sat above his angry eyes.
“You said you were bringing soldiers.” He looked around dramatically in front of Liam and Victoria. “I don't see soldiers.”
“Hi. Yeah. I said I would find fighters. These two pulled me out of the city. See? Fighters.”
The captain gave a distasteful look at Liam. He gave a too-long look at Victoria. The sirens in his head began to spin up.
“Well. I guess if they rescued you...” He looked at Blue, and Liam noticed his eyes flitted here and there over her figure. He ran over a mental checklist; a reference dive into his post-apocalyptic literature. Was this going to be the guy that offed him so he could float down the river with two young women as his prisoners? It had happened before, though he couldn't think of a specific instance from his books to give him guidance.
But he had to pull up the big boy pants. He gripped his spear a little tighter. “We may not look it, but we are fighters, sir.” He didn't think he quite had the hang of projecting an aura of competence in fighting, though he certainly felt confident of his fighting abilities if Victoria was at risk.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 96