The first zombie stumbled and fell as he got around the corner tank, nearest the fire. Liam almost felt sorry for it. It seemed to take a long time to push itself off the floor and then stand upright. With an almost comic timing, it noticed Liam and snapped its head sideways as if it was upset its tumble had been noticed. Others were soon behind it, and the chase was on.
5
Liam's plan was supposed to be simple. Run to the corner of the room, turn, then run the length of the room, turn, then run to the door. Getting to the corner was easy. With adequate lighting and his runner's form, he easily outpaced the clumsy zombies by a wide mile. But again, he had to wait so the zombies got a good look at him. He had to draw them to him.
The man who tripped had managed to stay in front of the dozens of follow on friends. It almost seemed like he tried to make up for his embarrassment by working harder than any of the others.
“Good job, runner!” he shouted. Partly to keep himself focused. Partly to encourage the zombies to go the last few yards into the corner.
He saw Victoria. She was already running back along the length of the room. No zombies were behind her, which was good. If they got between them, it would mean he was cut off.
“Got to run!”
No longer fooling around, he sprinted to catch up to Victoria. He knew she was no slouch, and in fact, had already crossed the half-way point of the room. In a few moments, he too reached the mid-point, but he slid to a stop in the dry dust and rock when he saw what was there.
The railroad tracks lay in grooves in the rock. The pair of them went underneath a huge vault-like door. The door was metallic, and bowed slightly outward. Though he couldn't see the thickness, it had the bulk of solid steel several feet thick, like the door had its own gravity. There were no hinges, no handles, and no signage. But it was a door nonetheless.
It was large enough to fit a train engine, which made sense given the fact the train tracks went underneath it. Impressive as that was, the real reason he stopped was because of the black dome hanging from an overhang a few feet above the door. In the dark recess, away from the direct glare of the powerful lights, he saw a tiny red light flashing on and off. Inside the dome, he imagined a video camera. He felt it was on and watching what was happening outside its front door.
Briefly, he waved his arm up at the camera—willing whoever was inside to open the door. But a quick look back told him his chance of getting safely inside the giant door was already past. The zombies made good time and closed in on him. More zombies walked up the middle aisle, along the railroad tracks. Yet the thing that really got him moving was seeing a zombie pop out of one of the columns of tanks in the direction Victoria had already run.
Uh oh. I'm behind them.
Sprinting for his life now, he ran directly toward the lone zombie. It was a tall, skinny man. His shirt had been ripped off, leaving his bare upper body exposed to the elements. He looked like he'd been rolling around on sharp rocks, as he was covered in scratches and smeared blood. His face was splashed with blood too, but his teeth were unnaturally white as he snarled with anger at Liam.
Meanwhile, Liam's mind constructed the most heroic action he could do: run, jump with the spear in hand, and drive the wooden stake into the brain of the hapless zombie. Then he'd continue running like he owned the place.
But that wasn't the safe way.
Rather than risk a chance encounter with the straggler, he ducked into the tanks. As he did so, another male zombie emerged to join the tall one. He didn't get a good look at it, but didn't try either. He was feeling the call of panic.
He ran into the column, ran lengthwise between two tanks, then turned right at the first row to run between the front of the tanks on the right, and the rear of the tanks on the left. He didn't recognize the models, but they looked to be World War II vintage—as if they'd been sitting in this room for a long time. The overhead lights were unable to completely pierce the darkness between the tightly packed tanks, giving a creepy aura to the steel beasts.
The cavern swallowed noise for the most part, but the drone of the zombies was steady and loud. There were far more than any of them had guessed.
Ahead, a zombie walked by. Maybe three tanks ahead. The woman didn't look from side to side. She just kept her head straight.
Liam ran. He turned as he entered the channel where he thought he'd seen the woman. She was indeed there; she had reached the rear row where white-teeth zombie had been. He only caught a glimpse of her as he ran, but he was terrified of the hand which touched his shoulder from his left side. He didn't look back. He focused on running.
Row after row of tanks were ahead of him. More zombies funneled down each column, and he knew it would only take one to block his path for good. Then he'd be surrounded—and eaten.
No, they'd only drain my blood. As if that's better…
It happened sooner than he'd hoped. A zombie ahead lazily turned the corner toward him, as if it were just wandering randomly.
Liam didn't wait, he turned to the right, made a quick recalculation, then pulled himself on top of one of the tanks. This time he knew the tank model. It was the distinctive rounded hull of a Sherman tank, white star and all.
From the higher vantage point, he saw the whole scene. The heads of the zombies inside the aisles between the tanks bobbed everywhere. They were thickest in the middle of the room, as he expected, but they were spreading out in all directions like water filling an ice cube tray. Several more had reached the outer wall behind him.
His stomach lurched at the realization he was completely surrounded while deep inside a rock quarry. With a hard lean against the turret of his tank, he took a moment to catch his breath. His mind played tricks on him as he heard what he thought was the screams of girls from elsewhere in the room.
“Liam!”
He recognized that one. He swept the ground behind his tank, but quickly grasped Victoria wasn't on the ground at all. She waved her arms while standing on the flat rear deck of her own tank. The arms of zombies reached up at her, though they had no chance to reach her as high as she was.
Not without climbing.
That got him moving. The jump from one tank to the next was easy. Much easier than jumping from one moving barge to the next with Great-Grandma on his back. The zombies couldn't see him as he jumped, and by the time he registered on their fresh food radar, he was already out of sight—jumping to the next tank. In sixty seconds, he hugged Victoria.
“Oh my God, Liam. This is unbelievable. Where did all these people come from?”
Liam didn't want to share his thoughts. Not here. On the day they'd passed this mine, a few days after the sirens, the line of cars going down the spiral road was endless. The entire highway had been blocked by the closed bridges, and the mine seemed like a place to hide. As Black had said, everyone seemed to think a quarry was a good idea, though he hoped it wasn't because of a TV show. They'd passed car after car inside the mine too, which means there were potentially thousands of survivors, maybe tens of thousands, deep in the corridors of the mines. Travis had said he threw out most of the maps because they were too bulky to carry. That could mean the tunnels went on for miles and miles in all directions…
And they were all coming here.
As more zombies spotted them on the open deck, they began to converge around the old tank. He felt Victoria tighten her grip on him, as if she was afraid she'd fall over the side into the waiting arms of the dead men and women below.
“I think we may have made a mistake coming here.”
He didn't disagree, but he was silent—he scanned the room, searching for the key to their escape he knew had to be there. He was the hero, time to start acting like one.
Layers of fear mixed with panic and the reality of it all settled in.
There's no escape. Not from down here.
Chapter 14: Undead Soldiers
Liam and Victoria held each other as the zombies swirled about on the ground below them. The deck of t
he tank was higher than any one zombie, but Liam had seen enough of them to know that once enough of them got together, they would start to trample each other and climb up over the bodies of their fallen friends.
And, if they were from Chicago...
He surveyed the crowd and found one that seemed to have figured out how to scramble up the side of the tank treads, very much like using a ladder.
“That one!” He pointed to the climber. “She's climbing. We have to move.”
He scanned the tank park, and focused on where he thought the first two men had gone. The plan called for them to jump into a tank nearest the exit, and then all the zombies were supposed to be drawn by the fire deep into the room. Liam and the girls were then to run around the outside of the parked tanks and meet up with the men once more, then run along the blue rope lights until they could escape. It was basically a huge bait and switch.
Only, the switch never happened because the bait was still drawing the zombies through the front door.
Liam led the way as he jumped from one Sherman tank to the next, heading in the direction he hoped he'd find the men. They scrambled, hopped, and climbed tank after tank, often only inches above the straining arms and hands of the infected horde. When they reached the last one in the corner, they had to turn to the left so they could jump the tanks in the column. That would bring them closest to the entrance, and to the place he hoped the men were hiding.
“Liam...” Victoria's voice wavered.
He leaned against the fifteen-foot long gun barrel while he looked over his shoulder. “Just keep going. Don't look down.”
Victoria moved to the top of the turret, a few feet behind him. She crouched down, so as to steady herself from a terminal tumble. “It isn't down I'm worried about. It's across.” She pointed to the next tank.
Unlike the jumps from side to side, the gap from the front of one tank to the back of the other was much greater. And, as the fronts dipped down, the tail ends of these tanks were blocky and high. If they were going backward, it would be a snap. Going forward was going to be a challenge.
There was no time for fancy plans. Already a zombie was grabbing the side of the tank and—no matter how clumsy the attempt—was managing to climb up the side. It seems there were more than a few people from Chicago hiding in this mine.
He ran down the short front piece of hull, placed his foot on the flat front fender, then jumped. He landed on the back deck, though he stumbled a bit on the uneven metal. He wasn't in any real danger of failing to make the jump, but they'd have to do it god-knows how many times to get where they were going.
Victoria moved to the spot he'd just vacated on the tank behind him. She smiled weakly, then made the short run and took her jump. She landed at about the same spot, and even tripped the same way he did.
“You weren't supposed to fall.”
“I do what you do,” she said with a real smile while she sucked in air from her burst across.
“We better keep moving.”
She took his hand as they both stood up on the rear deck. “You truly know how to show a girl a good time.”
“Just wait until you see how I get us out of here.” Once he'd said it, he felt the pressure building once more.
Why can't I just keep my mouth shut?
He swept the room as they inched around the turret of the olive drab tank, but he still saw nothing that gave him any hope he could deliver on his glib promise to wow Victoria. The big vault door was the only thing that might give him some hope if there was any indication from within that help was to be had. His heart told him someone saw him, but his head informed him it didn't really matter because there were so many zombies in their front yard now. If they were huddled in there for protection, he didn't think now was the time they'd come out.
Another jump. They cleared the gap to the next tank, though the ground had become packed with sick-looking spectators. A few zombies had made it onto the tank behind them, though they had trouble staying upright on the uneven surface of the sloped vehicle. One fell to the side, the other made an honest effort to cross the gap behind him but he too fell into the crowd.
The next few tanks were uneventful. They were getting better at jumping and had it down to a science by the time they reached the tenth row. But then the olive gave way to tan, and the technology ramped up from mid-twentieth century to last week. They reached the first of the many rows of M1 Abrams.
Liam cleared the distance with no issues. The Abrams was slightly higher than the rear of the Sherman, but it was flatter and easier to plant a landing for him. Ahead, the deck of the newer tanks was easier to walk on and jumping would be less risky.
He turned to catch Victoria—if she needed help, which he never presumed she did—and watched as a hand grabbed her just as he planted her foot to make the jump. It stole some of her inertia and she fell a foot short of where she aimed. She landed with her stomach up against the rear of the Abrams, and let out a loud croak when she did so.
Liam was on his knees in a second, but there were so many zombies below, it would have been a miracle if she wasn't grabbed.
“I've got ya!” He had one wrist, then the other. She hung over the side and he could only watch as an ugly, broken image of a man grabbed Victoria's leg and took a bite. She was shocked and reacted with a backward kick which threw the man off. But others had her too.
Liam saw Victoria turn back to him, a look in her eyes he'd not seen before.
“NO!” He refused to yield. Whether she was bitten or not, he was going to get her onto the deck. He braced his legs and pulled with everything he had, the deficiencies in his diet temporarily ignored. Victoria, to her credit, pushed herself up the side of the armored fighting vehicle to help, though she yelped a couple more times as the zombies took their opportunities to bite where they could.
The only thing that saved her was the zombies were more interested in using their teeth, than their arms. They made no effort to pull her back into their makeshift mosh pit.
Liam dragged her as far up the deck as he could. Right up to the rear of the boxy turret.
He was afraid to look.
2
“Liam. You can let go. You saved me.”
He hadn't loosened his grip, though they were temporarily safe. He was afraid that once he let go, she would start to change into a zombie, and he couldn't imagine what that meant for him. What he'd have to do...or if he wanted to do those things.
If she dies, I die. I knew this is how it would go down.
But he relented. Victoria pulled her arms from his, and scooched up the deck so she was leaning against the turret. Liam mimicked her by taking the seat next to her.
When they first met, he was afraid to look at her bare legs because he found her distractingly pretty. Her legs were well-sculpted runner's legs. Now, he felt the same fear at looking at her legs, though the reason was something else entirely.
Victoria pulled her legs to her and looked them over. She was wearing blue jeans—because she hated to get mosquito bites.
“I think I'm good. They bit at my legs, but they couldn't break through the material of these jeans.” She pointed to the bloody bite marks, but when she pulled her jeans up to her knees, there were no abrasions—just a few ugly bruises.
She let out a fatalistic laugh. “I'll take it.”
Liam's swirl of emotions got the best of him. He leaned over to her and felt the waterworks start. She seemed to take it all in stride.
“Someone's looking out for me,” she laughed again, though it sounded like she was also tearing up.
“I thought we were both dead.” He didn't tell her that he meant that literally, as he was ready to fight to the death against all the zombies to get away from having to kill the zombie version of her. But it was near enough to the truth.
“Well, we're not out of this yet. And maybe next time you'll consider wearing jeans too?” She said it to be funny. Something he desperately needed to hear. But there was truth there too.
He pulled back and looked at her, sharing tears. “I'm going to wear a full set of armor next time I find one.”
She stood up first, and pulled him to his feet.
“Onward?”
He looked ahead once more, they had five or six rows to go. Five or six more jumps and they'd know the fate of the men supposedly leading this operation. His only hope was that they had some miraculous plan, because he still had none.
The jumps between the Abrams tanks went much faster, and with less danger. The front deck and rear deck of the modern battle tank were almost the same height, so it was practically a walk in the park to skip from one to the next, no matter what was below them.
Lava is below us. That's less scary than what's really down there.
He played the children's game of jumping the imaginary lava until they reached the last tank in the column, which was also the last tank in its row. It was the cornerstone tank where the men were supposed to be hiding.
Liam rapped on the outer metal of the turret, hoping those inside could hear it over the generalized noise of all the angry zombies humming below.
The top hatch popped open in seconds.
“Hey, Liam. You made it. There are a few more than we thought.” It was Dave.
Typical understatement.
“Did you see Clarence? We saw him run into the tanks, but we had to jump in this first one before we saw where he went.”
He was slightly out of breath from his tank hopping, but he answered when he could. “We saw him run into the room, that way,” he pointed toward the fire, “but not sure he's still there.”
Then, to the important question for the adults in the room. “So what's the plan?” He'd spent weeks thinking of plans to help people escape zombies, often drawing from his voluminous reading of zombie books. Often, he wondered why it took a teen boy to solve the problems of adults, but he'd resigned himself to not knowing the answer. It may have been as simple as he just came up with good ideas faster than anyone else, or maybe he always saw the obvious answer to the questions. Or, maybe he was just super lucky.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 111