Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  He had gone through half his ammo—he carried four 30-round magazines. Each time he put down one of the already-dead soldiers, he felt remorse. Something about shooting “friendly” soldiers felt wrong on a subconscious level.

  Yeah, and shooting civilian zombies feels right!

  Most of the survivors had guns. Looking up the line he saw every type and style of firearms. Handguns, both semi-autos and revolvers. Numerous shotguns. All types of rifles from ancient Mosen's to modern AR-patterns. It made him feel a deep pride in his fellow man—they were working together to protect each other on this nondescript piece of track.

  When he stood up, he could see the front of the line a hundred yards ahead. The decision was easy. He ran. He'd made it twenty feet when he saw a zombie in the water pawing its way toward shore. The second shot managed to find the head and the swimmer sank below the surface. The column was potentially in danger from two directions now.

  He picked up the pace.

  On the way, he passed Victoria. She crouched behind the railroad embankment, tending a young woman who had been shot in the hip. A revolver lay nearby. He had no time for questions. He smiled at Victoria as he sped up to reach Jason and the leaders of the procession.

  “Jason! We have to move forward.” He yelled it at him, but hoped others would hear it as well.

  “We know, kid. There's a big group of infected around the next bend. My scouts are looking for another way past them.”

  That made perfect sense.

  “We're running out of ammo back there. The zombies are also coming out of the water.”

  That didn't seem to surprise him, but Jason put his hand on his hips as if thinking. His eyes darted over all parts of the battle, including the water.

  Liam stepped closer. He didn't know if Jason was one of those guys, but he knew adults sometimes didn't like getting suggestions from “kids,” like him. “I used to run with my track team on a trail nearby. You go up into the park,” he pointed away from the warehouse, up into some nearby woods, “and it will get us out of here.”

  “Where does it go?”

  Liam wracked his brain. The trail meandered through Jefferson Barracks Park, a big suburban parkland that bordered the cemetery. There was a bridge that carried the walking and bicycle trail over the railroad tracks further down the line. He was pretty sure it would get them past the blockage of zombies. He explained it to Jason and he immediately pushed his team in the direction Liam had indicated.

  For his part, he started for his station at the back of the line, but Jason caught him.

  “Hey, no. You need to be up front. Show us where to go.”

  He looked down at his feet, comforted he still had on his running shoes, though not his best pair. “OK. Follow me.” He took off into the woods, sure he'd recognize something once he got into the main part of the park.

  In sixty seconds Liam paused at a paved bike trail. He assumed it was the one he sought.

  “This is—”

  No one was behind him. He ran so fast he dropped all his followers. So he ran back through the woods until he found the lead elements of the survivors. They were as surprised as he was when he found them.

  “This way!”

  The second time he ran a lot slower. The tired people followed, and the path through the woods was getting trampled into place. He hoped Victoria and those in the back would manage to follow.

  When he got them to the trail he pointed in the direction they should go. No one waited for extra incentive, they took to the path and ran.

  For a moment he stared into the dense undergrowth along the path in the other direction—back toward the cemetery. He could see the neat rows of white headstones in the distance. A whiff of something came and went.

  Feet, don't fail me.

  He watched for a moment as more people came out of the woods and turned onto the assigned trail, then he took off to try to catch the front. Gunfire chattered behind as, he supposed, the trailing people worked to detach themselves from the pursuing zombie soldiers.

  The howl of a zombie came from the woods. It was the haunting call he'd heard down in the pit mine. The “call to arms” zombie.

  You need to think of a better name, in your free time.

  He was at the front of the line again before he let himself relax. Based on the time, he figured it was about a mile along the bike path from where they came in, to the point where it met the pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks. From there it would merge with another bike path and they'd be heading into the city. But now…

  Everyone halted at the edge of the bridge. Someone motioned for him to be quiet as he approached.

  This can't be good.

  Chapter 5: Pulling Back

  “General, I'm going to explain this one more time so we're on the same page, here.”

  Ms. Cantwell had spent fifteen minutes complaining about every detail of his organization and deployment of his forces and only his strict adherence to the chain of command prevented him from saying or doing something he might regret.

  “I don't want your tanks and jeeps and men up on the interstate. I want them here. On my wall.”

  He must have looked like he was going to—once more—explain why that was a bad idea, because she continued before he got his mouth open.

  “I know all your military strategerie, General, and I don't care. We need to show these people they have help out there or they're going to revolt.”

  “Wouldn't it be better if the infected never came within their sight?” he thought. The rest of the room looked at him with sympathetic eyes. He was in charge of the military operation, yes, but the one thing made clear to him from above was that Elsa's “department” had the final say on everything. Everything!

  He forced himself to control his tone. She may be a stupid bureaucrat, but he was a soldier. He respected the office—whatever it was—rather than the occupant.

  “Ma'am I can't have my own men shooting their fellow soldiers in the back. If I pull resources back to the wall, we'll effectively cede the battlefield to the infected. They'll be able to walk or drag themselves up to your magnificent ditch and we'll have to fight them from fixed emplacements on the levee.”

  “So you can pull them back?”

  “Just so we're clear—”

  “Yes, dammit, we're clear. You don't want to pull back. I do. I outrank you, so make it happen, sir.”

  The town's leaders and military attachés in the room squirmed, though he was a stone statute. He'd just been dressed down in front of all of them by a civilian woman who couldn't identify an enfilade or defilade to save her life.

  “Ma'am.”

  “OK, now that we have that cleared up,” she sneered once more at him, which he thought totally unnecessary, “we need to discuss 'Operation Renew America' as they've named themselves.”

  John Jasper wished he were in West Virginia right now. He'd more or less lost contact with CENTCOM, but his own intel people maintained contacts with as many other units on US soil as they could. Right now Third Army was plowing across the continent with the equivalent of seven divisions. Two of them were armored. One was Marine Corps. Because of overseas deployments and general manpower shortages, they were all understrength, same as his paper battalion.

  He leaned back in his chair, imagining for a moment the glory of leading such a formation. It would probably be the last great modern Army, before everyone was socked under by the Ebola Express train. Outside, he could hear the Paladins hammering the fields beyond the interstate. They were sitting in a nearby ball field, and he reveled in watching his water bottle shake, just a little, as they sent rounds downrange. He got lucky with those. They were being redeployed to the East Coast when everything went to shit, and he had the foresight to commandeer the train and bring it here.

  “...isn't that right, general?”

  “Say again.” He didn't apologize, he simply didn't want to listen to her.

  “I said, can you put those canons outside
the wall, too?”

  She wants it both ways, he lamented. A show of force, but doing the least possible good. About what he expected.

  The Paladin wasn't really made to get into firefights directly with the enemy, it was more of a fire-over-the-horizon weapons platform. However, that assumed the enemy was going to fire back. These sick people only used their fists. Decision: Paladin by a country mile.

  “I can put anything you want outside the wall. I can put my Paladins, my Abrams, and my Aladdins.”

  “Good. Thank you. Make it happen.”

  He snickered inwardly. He had nothing called an Aladdin. It simply proved his point. The civilian leadership had no idea of the forces they were playing with.

  “And General, I need it done by tonight.”

  “It shall be done.” His sing-song response was dangerously insubordinate. It felt surreal, but his entire existence in Cairo was happenstance. He was ordered to oversee the defense of St. Louis, but at the last minute the Army brass called off that operation and others handled the maneuvers in Illinois that stopped the sick from crossing the river. While he was in limbo waiting for orders that never came, he took things in his own hands after he found the Paladins sitting on a siding out in the corn rows of southern Illinois. He rode the first one into town himself. The first real action of his career.

  And his best assets were being used as propaganda toys by some floozy from DHS.

  His martial senses demanded he go out the gates on his war horses and die in glorious battle, perhaps in hand-to-hand combat with the undead, but he was also a practical man. The vagaries of life had tossed him to the one spot where there was a real defense against the specific threat created by these sick people. Cairo, Illinois was a finger of land now cut off by a watery sluice his men designed. To leave, even to situate units outside the gates, was a tremendous waste of manpower and as taught by the Russians during their big war—real estate. The reason he wanted his men and heavy weapons miles away on the interstate was that it kept the fighting far from the town. They had great visibility up on the highway. They had long firing lanes. And the infected just walked right into them. It was a turkey shoot.

  Giving up all that space was a travesty.

  But, following orders was still in his blood. For all he knew, the President could show up at his front gate tomorrow. He needed to be ready. He needed to be seen as a team player.

  2

  After the meeting, Ms. Cantwell invited him to her private chambers. She'd taken over the mayor's office inside the laughably small community center. He had no idea where the sweaty man had been sent.

  “Sit, General. Thanks for coming.”

  “Your welcome?”

  “I know what you're thinking: I sounded all pissed off in there so why am I being nice in private? Let me explain this to you, politely this time.” She smiled as she offered him a chair in front of the mayor's desk. He was tempted to stand, but there was no point.

  “Corn bread?” She offered him a piece from her desk. He demurred, though he was hungry, because he didn't want to owe her.

  “Plans are set in motion, Major General John Jasper, and I need your help.”

  “You've always had it, ma'am.”

  “Do I? Do I really? I wonder.” There was a gleam in her eye he found disturbing.

  “I bet you think I'm a real dope. Ordering you to move around silly trucks, or pull back here and push forward there, don't you?”

  He said nothing.

  “I get it. I'm a civilian in sheep's clothing in a man's world filled with zombies.”

  Bingo!

  “But I'm much more than that, John. And I want to show you.”

  He became uncomfortable with her casual use of his name and at her insinuation. The door was shut, the drapes were in front of the window. Was she about to come on to him? Get him to do her bidding by leaning on her feminine “charms.” A part of him was flattered by it, as much as he would have to refuse…

  She walked around the desk and pulled up the companion chair to the one in which he sat. She scooted right next to him and leaned over. Her perfume enveloped him.

  He found himself moving to the far side of his own chair, away from her gravity well.

  “Now, John, you have me all wrong. I assure you, you have no idea what I'm about to do.”

  It didn't reassure him.

  With lightning-fast reflexes she pulled out a pistol—from where, he didn't know—and had it pressed against his temple.

  “I know you think I'm a docile creature, John. I've got news for you. I'm not. I could kill you twice before you thought about screaming for help.”

  He did not scream.

  She pulled the trigger.

  He winced as the gun clicked, empty.

  “If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. I could have had you killed when you set up shop in my town, John. But it just so happens I need you. We need to work together to hold off the zombies while I do my job.”

  He willed himself to breathe.

  In. Out. Nice and normal, John.

  “You aren't with Homeland Security, are you?”

  “Ooh, now that's no fun. Asking questions with answers you don't need to know.” She rapped him lightly on the head with her pistol. “I can tell you my department trains their women very thoroughly, and I know when I'm being bullshitted, Mr. Aladdin, so keep that in mind the next time you want to insult me in front of the civilians.”

  Keeping his voice steady, he replied. “I thought I was helping you. Spending my men on your precious defenses. Reeling them in so the battle happens closer to town. That sort of stuff.”

  “Oh John. I already told you. I'm not what you think I am. If you believe I don't know what I'm doing by pulling your men back, well...that just means I'm doing my job properly.” She let out a bubbly laugh. “I'm just a girl, after all.”

  He was coming around to what this was all about. He was right from the beginning. “You want leverage over me? You'll tell people we're sleeping together if I don't. That sort of thing?”

  “Tsk tsk. You don't get it, do you?” She leaned in, without the gun this time, and got right up to his ear, and whispered. “There are over fifty kinds of zombies, John. Fifty. Think about that, just for a second. I need you and your guns to kill them.”

  She pulled back, speaking louder. “Let me tell you a story about a very special lady in our town, and maybe that will help you understand.”

  “Two blocks down, in that feces stain of a motel near the front gate, I have a prisoner who escaped from an unofficial Homeland detention facility less than a week ago. She was listed in my records as a medical test subject. A Ms. Peters. A volunteer who gave herself up to science in the effort to find a cure. And do you know what the results were?”

  “I'm sure you'll let me know.”

  “Of course. The results were: no results.”

  “She didn't get tested?”

  “That was my first thought as well, but I happened to know the base facilitator, so I looked up his records. And do you know what I found?”

  The general feigned interest, though part of it was getting to him. Watching her lose control of her people was gratifying in itself.

  “His records were gone, too. My administrator!” She stood up from her chair, but stayed next to it. “So I used secondary sources. My department flies drones around, everywhere. Leftovers from ridiculous grants from after nine-eleven. Anyway, the drone footage showed my administrator fleeing the scene in a helicopter, and Mrs. Peters escaping the research facility with two teenagers.”

  She smiled down at him. “I'm sure you can understand how much it hurts to have someone in your chain of command disobey orders, and usually it can be corrected with a smart rap on the bottom. What do you do when your star commander not only disobeys you, but also kills your friend? What do you do when that administrator kills U.S. Marines. Army units. You name it. What do you do?”

  “Hunt him down and kill him.”

  “Now
you're getting somewhere. So this woman shows up in my town, but the man who let her go is nowhere to be found...”

  “With all due respect, this sounds like a local law enforcement problem.”

  A quiet laugh. “You misunderstand. I bring him up—his name is Hayes by the way—because I want you to know what we're up against. He's the man who cataloged all the different types of zombies as part of his experiments. He's a very dangerous individual, for so many reasons. That's why it's important you follow my orders with precision and, if possible, good cheer when in front of the others.”

  He stifled a laugh.

  “Oh, yuck it up. It sounds crazy, right? But there's something I need to tell you about him. He holds the cure to the plague.”

  His face was blank.

  “The cure, John. He found it.”

  “How in the hell do you know that? You said he got away.”

  “I'm very good at what I do. Better than you'll ever know. I've found the person he infected. A person now sitting quite comfortably—well, maybe she's a bit hot—and definitely healthy in the hotel I mentioned.”

  “She's here?”

  “Yes, she's here, but my employee, and the cure, is not.”

  He knew this punchline.

  “And you want me to go out and find him.”

  “See! You do get me.”

  3

  John got in his Humvee and drove away from the community center. He would re-deploy his units as instructed, though he still didn't understand the reasons. But first, he stopped in the old motel. His truck pulled up to the black swimming pool.

  “Fancy a dip, sir?”

  “Nice try, Tom. Maybe after this all settles down I'll take a long soak, and I don't mean sweating in this humidity.” He wiped his brow. “Wait here for me, will you?”

  The motel was decorated at one time with maroon paint, though most of it had peeled and chipped away. It was the kind of place that would be rented by the hour in Junction City or Pueblo. Here, during a disaster of Biblical proportions, it was five star.

  He sauntered along the walkway, searching for his target. Most rooms were open and airy, as if management wanted to keep them on display to prove they weren't as seedy as the place suggested.