Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  When Victoria caught up to him, she tried to push him. This time, he couldn't move at all.

  “I've got a problem here.” His voice was high-pitched, but he wasn't embarrassed. It was his extreme panic voice, though he tried with all he was worth to keep it together. “There are...lasers...aiming at my chest.”

  Victoria, perhaps not believing him, scrambled next to him. When she arrived, a couple of the lasers moved to her white shirt, making large red blotches in the darkness.

  With the force of a fist to his face, he realized where he was. Bodies everywhere, but mostly in an even arc from left to right, as if someone had sighted in the distance and shot anything that made it into that space.

  He reached over to Victoria. “Can I have the flashlight, please?”

  With mechanical motions, he was able to get it from her and turn it on. At first, it refused to light, but he banged it with his hand and a tired glow came forth. He turned it on the pile of dead, confirming his suspicions.

  “These people were all shot. Look at them.” He panned the light on the bodies closest to them. It wasn't strong enough to see much beyond a few feet. All the bodies had terrible wounds. The amount of blood was sickening. He felt his stomach retch, though it was completely empty.

  “These were zombies...” He said it almost with relief, though the implications were no less damning for them. Not with laser sights drilling into their hearts.

  He turned to Victoria with the light. It was almost completely dead. In the final gasps though, he saw the recognition on her face. He felt it on his own. Together, they turned forward and screamed.

  “We're alive!”

  “Don't shoot!”

  A few moments of silence followed.

  The reply flew out of the darkness.

  3

  “Saffron! Azure! Get over here.”

  The girls, sounding distant from over the pile of bodies, shouted back. “Indigo!”

  They came up next to Liam and bear crawled over the worst of the pile. He followed them with Victoria next to him. The lasers vacillated among the four, as if unsure which to choose. With certain death behind, and the possibility of death dancing on his chest, he prayed.

  Please God, don't let my friends die on a pile of zombie bodies.

  He'd learned a lesson from Grandma Marty about praying. She once told him she never prayed for herself. Instead, she prayed for others. Liam wondered if she really meant that, or if it was some kind of adult way of making him think of other people first. Whatever the truth, he thought it made a lot of sense as he slid across the remains of the dead.

  The bodies cleared up as they moved closer to the source of the lasers. The blue lights on the floor reemerged, and the overall lighting situation improved. Liam felt he was seldom surprised these days, so it was with almost businesslike recognition he saw the big machine guns lining the wall with the door. He counted six of them, spaced about ten feet apart. The farthest one was almost invisible to his left, out in the darkness.

  A young girl stood in the small doorway to the right of the larger, closed metal door inset into the rock face. It was very much like the last big room he'd been in, although the smaller door was not frosted glass—it was heavy steel. A little light spilled out from inside, setting the girl in profile for those in the darkness. Liam knew the girl even before he could make out her features. She was, after all, as short as the two girls already with him.

  Blue and Pink ran ahead to their sister. Liam grabbed Victoria's hand and followed.

  “Hurry guys. We have to get inside. I'll turn on the guns again.” The triplets hugged briefly then disappeared from view.

  Victoria had a knack for reading his mind. She voiced his thoughts with a close whisper. “Lucky that their sister is the one operating these guns, huh?”

  He nodded, though she probably didn't see him in the darkness. He let her go up a couple steps to reach the doorway. When he mounted the steps, he turned around, wondering how close the zombie pursuit had come to reaching them.

  He was genuinely shocked when a nearby gun barked several times as it fired. Its laser had found something at the edge of its awareness. The zombies had come very close to catching up. He threw himself through the doorway and shut it with a bang. He stood with his back against it to catch his wits, and heard more of the guns start up. The sound was muffled through the doorway. He could feel them as much as hear them.

  “OK, this is too much. Who are you three?”

  He was still at the door, but the three girls were nearby in front of a big computer monitor. They were talking to each other in a tight hug-huddle, apparently unaware he said anything.

  The guns chugged outside the door, and he had a hard time separating himself from the metal. It was as if part of him wanted to be back there. Part of him wanted to get caught. He reveled in the vibrations from the machine guns.

  Victoria looked lost. She stood between him and the other girls with her hands on her hips. She either wanted to peel him off the door, or listen to what the girls were saying.

  Peel me off the door!

  With a flourish, she turned to the big monitor near the girls. “My God. There's an infinite number of them!”

  That got everyone's attention. Even Liam managed to free himself. The control room was very similar to the one they'd left earlier, though it had white lights on the walls, rather than deep blue. They seemed extra dim as if they only got half the electricity they required. Still, it was enough to see the third triplet. She was identical to the other two, of course, but was covered—absolutely covered—in dried and peeling blood. It was as if she took a bath in the stuff, and then picked off what she could from her skin, but was unable to get it out of her clothing. As he closed the distance, he thought she smelled horrible, though he couldn't say for sure as they were all covered in blood now from their climb over the kill zone.

  The new girl took a moment to introduce herself. She reached her hand out to Liam. “Hi, I'm Indigo, but you can call me—”

  “Black.”

  The girl paused her handshake. “How did you know that?” She nodded to her sisters. “They tell you?”

  “Yeah.” He wanted to believe they had agreed beforehand what they would call themselves in the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, but just thinking it sounded stupid in his head.

  “We told him,” the other girls agreed.

  They all gathered around the computer screen. It displayed a view from what was apparently a floating camera in the room outside.

  “Is this the drone?” Liam asked.

  He shivered again, involuntarily. He wrapped his arms around himself without thinking about it.

  Black happened to look at him as he did it. “Yeah, it's cold down here. I thought about going out to get some extra clothes from those people, but...”

  She turned back to the screen, describing what the drone was observing. “When I first saw you, I wondered how you'd gotten through that door back there. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you broke the glass. I would have done the same. But you could have at least blocked the second door.”

  Liam knew they'd made a mistake.

  “But that isn't the worst part. These people you see out there...” She put her finger on the computer screen to point to them. For the first time in his life, it didn't bother him. “...they came from across the courtyard.”

  “Oh, I guess I should explain.” She punched up some keys and a map of the mine appeared. She again began to drag her finger around the screen.

  “You guys came in the only door to this place. The one with the dump trucks. They get an A for effort on that one. F for delivery though.” A sad laugh. “So most of the people who came down into this wing of the mine went across the courtyard area where you came in. I don't know for sure, but I was told they keep some more dump trucks and other equipment over there. They like to have backups on every level.”

  “Most went that way?” He asked.

  “Yeah, a few people who work
here tried to get everyone into that doorway. I wasn't going to go anywhere near a large group of people, especially not in an enclosed space. I went through the blue door. Plus, I was pretty messed up though after my—”

  She looked away from everyone for a few seconds. “—my descent into this place.” She stood up and turned to her sisters. “I don't think Mom made it. She...she ran to get out of the mine. I had to run the other way or I would have died, too.”

  Her sisters gave her a hug, and Victoria spoke up. “You did the right thing. I had to leave my friends behind. It sucked.” She put her hand on the scrum of girls. A hand reached out in thanks.

  Liam's eyes returned to the monitor. He sat down at the terminal and cleared the map. He brought up the screen showing the scene outside. The drone watched as more and more zombies arrived at the bodies of their friends and continued on, unaware what was ahead. A small rise of bodies formed in the middle. It created a rudimentary defilade for those coming up behind the leaders. Many of the clumsy things fell over their mates and sort of crawl-walked onto the pile. This kept them low enough to avoid the bullets of the automated guns. They sought targets elsewhere.

  The guns continued to fire, but many rounds went over the backs of those slithering across the pre-sighted killbox. In minutes, those same crawling zombies crested the little rise. Some were shot on sight, but others slid down the other bodies. Even if they took a bullet, they continued—unless it was a headshot. The guns had to readjust constantly. They weren't smart enough to aim for the head, but by the sheer numbers of bullets, they often did hit their head.

  The controls for moving the drone were labeled on the screen. With the mouse and keyboard, he quickly learned the basic maneuvers so he could turn the drone to face the guns. About half of them turned on their automated paths, but they weren't firing.

  “Uh oh.”

  The girls had all turned to watch him work, and he heard mumbles of curses. They all saw how this game would end. On a whim, he asked Black if the drone had a gun.

  “Nope. They told me it was just a camera.”

  He turned to her, looking up. Even from the chair, he didn't have to look up very far.

  “Who told you? Where are they?”

  Black looked at him with a serious face.

  “Yeah.” She dragged out the word, as if hesitant to get into it. “About that...”

  4

  “So, I said I broke off from the main group. I came through the blue door and the computer room there. I hid under the desks for a long time. Days, maybe. But I had to find water. I wasn't going back out the way I'd come. I was convinced there were infected just outside...”

  She pointed to the computer screen with the drone footage. Only a couple of the guns still had ammunition.

  “I ran deeper into the mine, and I came through there. But back then, there were no dead bodies. Just a couple soldiers inside this room, watching things on the outside, just like we're doing here.”

  The second-to-last gun dropped out of action.

  “Timothy and Frank. Ha! I'll never forget their names for as long as I live. We spent days in this room. For a long time, we sat doing nothing. They gave themselves time on the computer, but they said I didn't have clearance. Sometimes they showed me the news of the plague up top from websites they liked, but mostly I just hung around. They wouldn't let me go deeper into the mine—through that door.” She pointed to the inside door of the control room. “At least not at first.”

  “Days went by, but eventually the dead started to show up. The guns started to shoot. It wasn't constant, but hour after hour the guns would go off. They had a drone they used to do surveillance of the columbarium, but they brought it in so they could see into the room you just came through.”

  “Columbarium?” Victoria again anticipated his own question.

  “Yeah, it's what they called this room.” She pointed to the dark windows on the far wall. “I think it means it's where they store ashes of the dead.”

  Liam's dry mouth reminded him of another point. “Do you have any water here?”

  Black pointed to some hard hats in the corner. “We filled up those hats with water, help yourself. There's plenty in the mine, as long as the dead aren't nearby.”

  The whole party drank from the hats, as Black continued.

  “Anyway, they told me what was through there, but they refused to show me. They were more scared of what was back there than they were of the dead piling up at our front door.”

  She got up and moved to the interior door. Like the previous control room, the wall was made up of large windows, and the light of the room spilled out into another large cavern. The large metal door for trucks was just outside the window. Liam wondered how many big rooms were in the system. He didn't recall seeing many chambers beyond the first on the map.

  “Then the Army came. A few days ago.”

  “The Army?” Blue lit up. “Are they here to rescue us?”

  “I wish,” Black replied. They somehow tapped into the feed on the drone and told the boys they were coming in. They got really weird though. Said I had to hide, just for my own safety. We argued, of course—I didn't want to hide when rescue was so close. But they pulled guns on me. Threatened me. So they let me out into the next room and gave me a light and told me to go find a quiet place and stay silent.”

  “None of it made sense. Until I heard the shooting. I saw the Army guys come through the control room. Three of them. They just kept going into this room, then they disappeared in the darkness. I haven't seen them since.”

  Liam realized what she was saying. “They're still here? How long ago was that?”

  Black turned around, facing the room. “That was yesterday.” She held up her arm and pointed to her wristwatch. “This was Timothy's. I took it from his body.”

  None of it made any sense.

  “So the Army came through, and killed the Army guys?”

  “Nope,” Black replied, “they weren't Army. Neither group was, it turns out. Just a bunch of boys pretending. Doing work for their bosses up there.” She pointed up, her meaning clear. “Timothy was still alive when I found him. He told me why he'd been killed. He told me what he was protecting. It was why the other group had come here.” She was thumbing in the direction out the window.

  “What, Black? What were they protecting in there?” Blue asked.

  “It sounds cliche but you really have to see it for yourself. Words don't do it justice.”

  She collected herself, then made like she was going to open the door. She pulled a lever on the wall. Lights in the larger room started to spark. “It will take the lights a while to warm up. We'll get out there just in time to see them come on.”

  On the computer monitor, Liam noticed all the guns outside had stopped firing. Somewhere along the way, he failed to notice the lack of gunfire outside the room. But he still jumped when the banging began on the metal door.

  Black saw he was looking at the drone footage. The screen showed the other side of the door. More and more zombies stacked up in the frame. The front cadre beat on the door with great force, though for once, Liam felt confident they could not break it down no matter how many were out there. Only a few could assault the door at the same time because of the small flight of steps leading to it.

  Black returned to the terminal. With the mouse, she whisked the drone into the darkness and landed it. “We need to save its power in case we need it later. I don't think we can grab it through the door anymore to recharge it.” She laughed a little, though the implications were anything but funny.

  On her feet again, she moved to the interior door. “Hurry, guys. You've got to see this as the lights come on.”

  “But you said the Army guys are still out there, somewhere, right?” Liam was concerned they were about to be ambushed.

  “They aren't Army. And yes, they are still in the room. But they won't give us any trouble. I took care of them.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she ran ou
t the door.

  “Come on, hurry!”

  5

  Liam followed Black's two sisters, with Victoria in tow. Nothing made any sense. He thought it was the lack of proper light playing tricks on his mind. Everything seemed out of balance in the darkness, low lights, and long shadows everywhere.

  And the heat. The new cave was a raw shock. Hotter and drier than the summer day outside.

  Ahead, Black flicked on a high-powered flashlight as she jogged. The room was larger than the last one, or at least higher. He saw the glint of metal hovering on each side of him, though he couldn't make out the shapes. On the walls and columns of the room, lights began to flicker. They reminded him of the ancient lights in his high school gymnasium. They seemed to take an eternity to light up. His teachers were always hesitant to turn off the lights for short periods of time, because they took so long to come back on.

  They were coming on now.

  “Hurry! We're almost there.”

  She was twenty-five yards ahead, but Liam saw her come to a stop. She turned out her flashlight, but there was a low light from the cumulative effect of all the lights around them starting to come on.

  They arrived together in what turned out to be a large intersection in the center of an incredible interior space hollowed out of solid limestone. He was covered in sweat from just a few minutes of running.

  Black spoke. “Some dumbass got the idea a quarry would be a safe place to go in the event the dead started to walk the earth. Timothy said it was because of some TV show about zombies—those fake people hid in a mine and made it look easy. But people who came into this mine never found safety.” She paused dramatically, apparently because she was being dramatic. “And this is why.”

  The lights remained dim, but Liam could now see most of the cavern. Indeed, it was a cavern. It was much bigger than he imagined—hundreds of yards in every direction from where they stood. They were smack in the middle. A row of raw stone columns extended along an axis he imagined as north and south and another went east and west. They'd come up the north-south axis. The ceiling was probably forty feet above the solid rock under their feet in every direction.