From his vantage point, he could see the spiral road full of cars falling down into the mine.
Lots of heroes died there.
2
They drifted among the cars as they went down. He was in front, with Blue. Victoria and Pink were a couple car-lengths behind, quietly chatting.
“Why this mine? What are you looking for?”
The answers to that question were endless. How do you explain you are trying to save the world? But he'd already blurted out the thrust of his mission earlier.
“I'm trying to find the cure to the plague. I was...told...this was the place to look.”
“Who told you? What could possibly be down there? You sure you trust them?”
Her questions hit the mark. A random phone text message was a flimsy premise to pack up from a safe city, travel by boat hundreds of miles, and then try to gain access to a pit mine he was pretty sure was packed with zombies. Yet, he'd learn to trust his instincts the past couple weeks. They often—not always—put him on the correct path. Plus, this time, he had no other options if he hoped to do more than sit things out in a safe house.
“A friend gave me a tip. This mine is supposed to have some kind of information that will help Victoria and I track down the people who made the plague so we can get help curing it.”
She was quiet for a long minute.
He tried to make the sale, though he didn't know why he should care what she thought. “You probably wouldn't believe this, but we actually met one of the guys who released the plague. We helped kill him.”
There was a lot of nuance in the real story, but he didn't have time for a data dump.
Still, she remained silent for another couple minutes while they continued by car after car. They passed the wreckage of the dump truck that Jones drove off the edge. He wasn't surprised to see there was no body inside the cab, even though the superstructure of metal was crushed and ripped apart. Other than one cursory look inside, he didn't make a big deal about what was otherwise a very sad moment for him. Victoria made no effort to stop, either.
“You really think there's a cure for this?” Blue pointed to the line of cars. He almost answered with a snap reply, but he took some time to think over the question. The implication was much broader than he'd given her credit for, initially.
Since the sirens blared, he'd seen things getting worse from one day to the next. There were some high points, such as Camp Hope, but even that had been overrun and he had no idea how it fared today. Or if Mom and Dad were making out OK there. Cairo held out some promise, though he'd already accepted it was doomed. He kept that thought in a locked vault deep inside him, because he couldn't spend his days worried sick about Grandma. If the zombies overran the place, she'd be the first casualty. He was sure of that. But, through it all, his only tangible hope for surviving the zombie infection and all it brought was that he would document everything—with a notebook he'd had yet to find—and eventually play a part in rebuilding once they'd gotten the zombies sorted. He had to believe the cure was both literal and figurative.
“Yes. My Grandma once said something to the effect the cure starts with me. If I'm not willing to go out and find it, the world would die. Everyone thinks someone else is going to do it. Eventually, someone has to do it. So why not me? And Victoria of course, we're partners.”
“Is she your lover? I see the way you look at her.”
Liam felt his face explode in redness. “I, uh. We? I'm not—”
Blue laughed. “Say no more, Mr. Smooth. I was just asking for a friend.” She made sure he was looking; she winked at him and nodded her head backward.
Liam stammered, trying to formulate a reply. Eventually he bagged the idea and just shut up.
About halfway down the spiral, they came to a large white passenger van. They'd been talking in normal voices up until that point, but they all shut up as it became obvious what was inside.
“My God.” Victoria had caught up and stood by his side as they looked ahead.
The van was filled with the infected. At least as best they could see. The large windows lining the van were all filled with bloody hand prints. As they watched the shadows inside, bloody hands rubbed in several spots on the glass.
It was like some kind of sick wind-up toy. The longer they watched, the more animated the hands became. They swished faster and faster along the glass, then they began to pound from time to time. The van started to rock slightly.
“Move it.” Liam spoke forcefully, but in a hushed voice.
They formed a line as they walked between the edge of the road—and the twenty-foot cliff below them to the next level of the road—and the van itself. The passengers erupted in screams and moans, creating a terrible storm inside the confined space. The van rocked wildly and hands started to pop through the glass. Blood flowed in torrents as flesh was sliced by the glass. The friendly carpool van soon had several streaks of red as macabre accents.
As they all ran, Liam turned back to see the first bloody mass pour out the shattered side window.
“Don't stop, guys. One of them just got out.”
He ignored that several other cars also had moving shapes inside. If people were already sick, or bitten, as they made their way down this ramp, it wasn't a big leap to imagine them turning into zombies inside their vehicles, and then sitting there until something drove them to get out. He was horrified to realize they were now bait as they ran past more and more cars with deadly fish in their glass bowls looking for their first meal.
The only creature in pursuit, so far, was the one from the white van. And, because Liam was accustomed to disappointment these days, he wasn't surprised at all when he tried to guess how fast it was moving. It was going very fast.
In fact, one might say the thing was running.
3
Liam tried to get a feel for the land. They were getting close to the bottom, but it would still be many minutes before they covered the distance to the black hole down there. He had no idea what they'd find at the entrance. It could be blocked or stuffed with zombies. They needed to take it slow.
A hundred yards ahead, he saw what he needed.
“Guys! Jump in the back of that pickup truck. We have to fight this zombie before we go further down.”
He hoped they'd heard him. It was dangerous to call out, but they were spread out and he had no other option, short of stopping and fighting alone. He knew that was as good as suicide, in most cases. It wasn't that he was scared of fighting any one zombie, but he had a primal fear of twisting an ankle or getting his head stuck in a drain pipe and then dying the death of an idiot.
It was always safer to stay with your team. He'd learned that in video games, and used those lessons now in life.
Pink and Blue were already inside the bed of the truck, their makeshift weapons at the ready. Victoria scrambled up next. He followed her in, spear under his armpit.
When he turned around, the zombie was nearly upon them. It had made good time down the slope of the road. Others followed. He looked across the pit to the road above and saw a few figures here or there stumbling down the road. They weren't moving very fast, but those zombies would go until they reached whatever was at the bottom, now that they had something to chase. If his group started at the bottom, they could have sucked all the zombies right out the top of the place.
If only.
Liam braced himself with his spear. Victoria had the Glock out.
“Don't shoot unless you have no choice.” He assumed she understood why.
She turned to the twins, eying the wrench. “Are you going to use that?”
Pink timidly handed it to her. Blue kept her grip on her metal rod.
The running zombie was blood-soaked, but it was once a teenage girl. Thin and slight of frame, it was covered completely in both wet and dried blood, as if it had been soaking in the stuff for days. The fresh blood was undoubtedly from its escape through the broken window. She wore tattered jeans shorts, though he couldn't tell i
f they were designed that way or had been torn recently. She had on the remains of a tasteful light-colored top, though its color was difficult to guess given the red all over it.
The girl zombie surprised him by zigging behind the sedan behind the pickup truck. She jumped up onto the back and, as she found her feet, continued running over the roof and onto the hood. Then she jumped the gap between the two vehicles and made a clumsy effort to grab onto the tailgate. Her subsequent fall would have been comedy gold if she weren't trying to eat them.
The girl screamed in an unworldly howl.
“That's new,” he said to no one in particular.
A moment later, the truck bed leapt up, bouncing him about a foot above metal. Something had slammed hard onto the roof of the small cab.
He looked up. There were two faces on the edge of the cliff up on the next level of the road. Those zombies could continue to walk down the road and reach them in twenty minutes, or they could just jump and close the distance in moments.
The jumper zombie was a mess in the bent metal, but it wasn't dead. It tried to pull itself from the dented cab.
“I got it.” Victoria went with her wrench in that direction. Liam had no time to watch as the teen zombie stuck her head over the back tailgate, reminding him he had his own problems.
His feet felt like they were made of worms. He couldn't get a solid footing, but he thrust the spear toward the head of the girl. He could tell it was a bad push as it was happening. Instead of piercing the eye and brain, it went through the left cheek and glanced off her jaw. It sent a splash of blood onto his spear and his hands. The wound was horrific to look at, but not even a bother for the zombie.
She snapped at the spear and grabbed for it. Her hands were a slippery mess, so she couldn't wrest control of it, but with blood all over his end of the spear it became less effective for him, too. It was hard to grip the wood and get another shot.
OK, so these things have a design flaw.
He recoiled at the disgusting scene. He tried to kick her face, though that only bought him a few seconds. He slid in the bed of the truck, more from fright than the drips of blood down there.
Victoria let out a series of grunts as she pummeled the zombie on the roof.
Pink and Blue huddled together in the middle of the cargo bed, seemingly paralyzed with fear. Above, another zombie started his jump. He judged the distance, angle of approach, and position of his friends—and knew it was going to be close.
He made it to his knees, and used his spear to shove the girls toward the cab. They tumbled into Victoria, who had her wrench high above her head in the midst of another killing blow. All three fell against the cab and the grievously wounded zombie there.
In a flash, the zombie from above dropped exactly where the two girls had been standing. The thing had no grace whatsoever; it fell head-first onto the metal. He couldn't look directly at the remains of its head, but he knew it was absolutely out of action.
The teen zombie was over the edge and upon him. Not knowing what else to do, he held up the spear and she landed on top of it. Unlike the movies, she didn't fall on the spear as it passed through her. Instead, the spear entered her chest and got stuck on something. She stood there flailing in anger, trying to reach him.
Victoria, recovering from the interruption from the other girls, turned to Liam's zombie.
“Get out of the way,” she shouted to them.
Still, they stood with little movement.
She got around them and swung the wrench with great force. The heavy metal tool fell squarely on the top of the teen's skull, making a sick crunch as it impacted. Liam had to look away as Victoria proceeded to dismantle it from the inside out until the head was more or less a pile of mush.
“Come on Liam, I need you.”
He heard it as an echo in his head.
“Come on Liam, I need you.”
That time he heard it clearly.
“I'm here.” He balanced the dead zombie on his spear as he got up. The thing had slumped down, so he pushed her backward as he drew the spear from her. He had an inspiration to wipe the spear on her clothes to clean it off, but she had no clean patch of clothing on her. Instead, he used his jeans.
A third zombie fell from above. This one landed on the tailgate—another horrible attempt to shortcut the roadway. It fell to the outside, leaving a large dent and a clump of hair on the back of the truck.
They looked at each other, then above. More heads had reached the shortcut.
Together, they came to the same conclusion.
“Run!”
4
Liam tapped the twins before he got out.
He assumed they'd follow him. He was several cars down the road before it registered they did not.
“Victoria, stop!” She was a few cars ahead of him.
He turned around, wishing at that moment he'd just run off with Victoria when they had the chance. He gripped his spear as he'd gotten it reasonably clear of fluids.
“Blue! Pink! Run!”
They were huddled together in the truck bed, near the cab. Just where he'd left them.
“Hey! We have to go.” He stood off the side, hoping they'd get the hint and jump the side to him. When they made no effort to comply with his reasonable request, he did the only thing he could think would help.
He turned his spear around and poked them with it.
“Ouch.”
Not knowing how to play this—he'd seen people freeze in battle several times the past few weeks, including himself on more than one occasion—he decided to use humor.
He turned on his British voice—he was a fan of goofy British humor. “Pardon me, ma' ladies. Things seem to have gone pear-shaped here. Fancy a walk fer a rescue?”
It had the intended effect. The both turned to him with the look of confused humor.
He held out his hand. Pink was first and took his hand as he helped her over the edge, Blue jumped the side on her own.
He pushed them down the road, willing them to find some haste. He heard the thud of another zombie as it slammed into the pickup truck.
Whatever smart planning he intended to do on the way down had to be sacrificed for speed. They kept running straight ahead on the road, not stopping to look into the cars and trucks, or finding places to fight the growing numbers behind them.
I knew this looked too easy.
When they reached the bottom, Liam looked up. It was a confusing mass of activity on each of the levels of the spiral. Walking zombies. Running zombies. Some jumped the edges, though most did not. Somehow they knew to keep trudging down the road and they'd eventually reach their prey. If it was any kind of intelligence, it reminded him of a bloodhound.
They were far ahead of most of the zombies, though the bottom of the pit mine was filled with more cars. An area about the size of a football field was crammed with abandoned vehicles. Now that they were close, he figured any remaining dead inside those cars would catch wind of them. Then it would all be over.
They stayed away from the parking lot, and headed for the thirty-foot wide black hole of the pit mine entrance.
A huge sign was inset in the rocks above and outside the entrance. It once acted as a friendly reminder for truck drivers and mine workers, but someone had defaced it permanently. It said, “Congratulations! You have had,” followed by a blank space with numerous shotgun blasts in the sign, “days since the last injury at your quarry.”
Beyond the sign, still near the front of the illuminated entrance section, it looked like someone had lined up a bunch of cars, then blew them all up, then blew up the debris. Large rocks had fallen from one wall, and there was a good-sized hole on the floor of the rocky tunnel. The walls were blackened and scorched. His first thought was that a tank had blasted its way into the tunnel, though that was impossible given all the intact cars on the one road in they'd just descended. He'd seen a tank tear into the zombies inside a similar, if smaller, tunnel back at the Arch. If this place was crawli
ng with zombies, a tank would be a great start to cleaning them up. Or…
He thought of the jet that screamed overhead while they sat up on the cliff. Another piece of random data plopped out of his head, too. Back at the Arch, he'd learned the military attacked large groups of zombies wherever they could find them.
At one time there were a lot of zombie here.
They all stood at the threshold of the darkness, unsure.
He turned around and tried to guess how many zombies he could see moving above him on the mine road. Dozens for sure. Maybe a hundred. Enough to require an air strike if someone discovered them? The pilot from earlier had nearly flown over the mine on his sneaky pass above them. It wasn't unreasonable to think he'd be back.
He looked into the blackness, suddenly aware of an important piece of missing survival gear.
“Does anyone have a light?”
The groans gave him his answer.
“How could you have overlooked something so obvious,” Blue asked. He heard Pink crying softly.
The zombies from the road were very close now, and other zombies lurked in the parking lot of cars. Whatever he was going to do, it had to be now. He had a notion to go toward the parked cars and try to find a flashlight, but he could easily be cut off by those from the roadway. His team consisted of fifty percent deadweight, further making any decision a potentially deadly one.
He admitted to himself he didn't know what to do. It was a full minute of pacing before Victoria finally asked him.
“You don't have any ideas, do you?”
He pulled her aside. “We can't leave these two behind while you and I go look for a light. They can't fight. I don't know what to do.”
“Liam!” Blue called. “We have more trouble.”
“Well, that just figures. And here I was worried this was going to be too easy.”
Up the road, minutes behind, they could also see the running group of zombies. They were dressed just like the teenage girl from the van. The rest must have busted open more windows, or maybe they hit the button to unlatch a door. Bottom line: they were all out, and heading their way.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 103