Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  Liam saw the worry in the man's face. He'd been remarkably calm while they were speaking, but the talk about the elderly seemed to shake him. As if he'd come to regret his part in that decision.

  You and me both, friend. Hard choices enough to go around.

  They left the office and regrouped back at the windows near the elevator, away from the two military-looking men guarding the doors.

  “I'm sorry for that. He carries the weight of this place on his shoulders. We were lucky he saw us, actually. I radioed up after we talked and he insisted he meet you.”

  There were no other people in the hallways. Liam absently wondered what other commitments the man had. He should be swimming in meetings, he guessed.

  Miki carried on. “And I think I can help us find a suitable test subject. But I'll have to break some patient confidentiality rules to do it.” She smiled weakly. “Follow me.”

  In moments they were at a nurses' station and she was punching up some records. There was no one else around, which was enough reason to ask about it.

  “Uh, why aren't there people in these rooms? Where are the nurses?”

  The doctor didn't respond right away. She appeared lost in the names and data on the screen.

  When he repeated himself, she responded. “Oh, yeah. The top ten floors are empty. There aren't enough nurses for starters. Many of them ran on those first days to get home with their families. A few brought their families here, so they could work. Most never came back. But beyond that, we don't have bedsheets, supplies, medicines, or any of the other million things it takes to run a hospital. Bosley and his team made the right call on that. We focused on who we could save, and we focused on running the hospital with only the amount of staff that could handle it. These rooms are empty because every piece of equipment and supplies was moved down and consumed on the lower floors.”

  She returned to her screen.

  “Here he is.” She pointed her finger at the screen, touching it. Liam used to think of this as a fingernails-on-a-chalkboard annoyance, but these days he let it slide like he did back in the mine.

  “Hans Grubmeyer. Aged 105! Wow. I didn't know he was that old.”

  “You know this man?”

  “Know him? No. I met him here in the hospital. He came in with severe headaches and, uh...I'm not really supposed to share this, but he needed glasses.” A short laugh. “He was pretty 'with it' for the most part, but the thing that stood out was that he had no other medical conditions. He didn't take any medications. No nothing. With all the other old people we turned away, I had it in my head this man might be able to make it.”

  “He was healthy? You kicked him out?” Liam sensed he used a little too much accusation in his tone, but he couldn't help what he felt.

  “No, not at all. He wanted to leave. Said he had an appointment or something. I thought he went nuts, but I watched him walk across the street, into the park.”

  “So why tell us about him?” Victoria asked.

  “You guys look like you can handle yourself. You know the stakes. I think you're perfectly suited for what I see on this computer screen.”

  With her dainty finger she pointed at the address where the man lived.

  “Like I thought. He lives close enough to walk home. His address is just north of the park. If you can get him to come back, we might just be on the road to a cure.”

  Sounds easy as pie.

  Victoria grasped his hand and squeezed.

  Chapter 8: The Naples Soldier

  Liam and Victoria sat together in the sunny afternoon air. A thousand different smells wafted up from the large field full of people below their shady hillside. They were far from alone, but it was what passed for privacy in the crowded park.

  “You know, we could tell them we'd bring Grandma here if they gave us a boat.” She looked at him with a friendly smile.

  Was this park safer than Cairo, Illinois? The place had the numbers and they'd figured out how to keep the zombies outside the perimeter all this time, but it had no formidable rivers protecting it. Cairo would be nearly impenetrable once they got that canal built between the two great waterways.

  On the other hand, if government restored order in St. Louis, it might become habitable again. That might be worth the risk of grabbing her.

  He was troubled by his thoughts of letting Grandma have testing done to her. After all they'd fought against with Hayes and Duchesne and his NIS team, would it be surrender to let Grandma be subjected to testing anyway?

  It matters who is doing the testing.

  There it was. Testing wasn't the real problem.

  “If they had a helicopter, I'd try it. I wouldn't mind having Grandma here with us so we're all together, but I don't think she'd make it on a boat. She wouldn't have made it on our last boat ride—and that climb up the bluff.”

  “Or the walk down into the mine,” she reminded him.

  “No, she wouldn't have liked that one bit,” he laughed.

  “So then, do we go out and try to find this Hans guy? What if he's dead already?”

  “I don't know. Do we wander around going door to door looking for other other hundred-year-olds? They have to be a rare species now.”

  Even before the sirens they were rare. Now...how many would there be in the city?

  He pulled out his phone. This was something he could answer. He got it out of the protective plastic bag and turned it on.

  “We have a signal here!” He suspected as much when he saw the mobile medical cart and functioning hospitals. They would blanket the place with wireless access to the internet. They were even kind enough not to require a password.

  The phone still had good charge from when he had electrical access back in Cairo. In a few clicks he found the information he needed. Ironically, it was a government website for the 2010 census.

  “Looks like Missouri had 1166 people over one hundred years of age in 2010. It doesn't say how many are in St. Louis, but if this is for the whole state, maybe half of them are here.”

  “So about 550 as a best case scenario?”

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  From there they whittled the numbers down based on survivability. If hospitals like this one had sent them home for lack of care, would that be common elsewhere? Liam had already heard how retirement communities had dried up and blown away. A certain percentage had to have gotten in cars and drove with families to escape the city, much as he and Grandma had done. Those that rode it out…

  Victoria had leaned in to read his phone, too. “Wow, one third of those 100-year-olds lived by themselves! I had no idea. I thought your Grandma was unique when you said she lived on her own.”

  His thoughts quickly turned dark. Those people would make the easiest targets for criminals and hungry neighbors, much as he worried back when he weighed leaving Grandma alone in her home so he could go find help. If he'd done that, she'd almost certainly be dead right now.

  After all their calculations, the number they came up with was 100. And that was wildly conservative, based on a lot of hope.

  “If there are 100 people over 100 left in St. Louis, and they are spread out over the entire city and county, it could mean—”

  “That we'd never find one by going door to door,” he replied.

  “We could check here in the park. Surely someone must have come here and survived?”

  He'd been sneaking looks as he walked to the hospital and walked back. He hadn't seen anyone he'd consider to be retired, much less elderly, out in the fields. If there were older people about, they were well-hidden. Probably under the trees or inside one of the many outbuildings throughout the park. He allowed there could be some ancient survivors out there, but Doctor Yu said she hadn't seen any, and it could take a week to walk all over the huge park.

  On the other hand, they had the exact address of a 105-year-old man. He looked at the note Doctor Yu had given him with the address, then punched it up on his phone—thankful he had access to the basics of the inter
net again—and was surprised how close it was. He looked at the address, then looked to the north. He held up his phone, lining up the map with what he was seeing. “His house is right there.” He pointed to a large mansion which was literally across the street from the park.

  “No wonder he didn't want to stay in the park or hospital. His house is here already.”

  They both looked across the park to the distant mansion. It was in a row of similar homes, like millionaires of the early 1900's had agreed this was the ideal place to put down roots.

  They had their destination.

  2

  When they got back to the medical tent, his mom had gathered Jason and a handful of the other Polar Bears.

  “Liam, Jason and these men and women would like to go with you. I told them what you were doing, and why you were getting the old man.”

  He was inclined to wave them off, as he felt the most comfortable when it was just him and Victoria, but they weren't asking.

  “You helped get us out of that river. We'll help you with whatever you need.” His partners all nodded agreement. There were four men and two women, besides Jason and his mom. They were passing ammunition around before he could say no, though he and Victoria only received ten rounds of the caliber they needed for their AKs. As rifles go, they weren't exactly common. The others had AR-15s and one guy had a rifle he didn't recognize at all.

  “You guys are welcome to drink up. We also have a small supply of food.” Doctor Yu pointed to a footlocker next to the water table he hadn't noticed before. He could see it was filled with the same energy bars he'd seen floating around many times during the emergency, including back in Lucy's Football.

  The doctor read his mind. “Ten pallets of those things came off the back of some big transport planes. They dropped them right on the camp—had to, really—though they injured several campers. What could we do?” She shrugged.

  “How many can we take?” Liam wanted to take the whole chest, but knew the answer was closer to zero.

  “We're allotted one per day. Starvation rations. About 200 calories. If you bring back the gentleman, I'll make sure you each get an extra.”

  Part of him bristled at the kinda-sorta bribe, but how many people were out in the park right now dreaming of a second bar? And how many people were trapped in their homes—with nothing? He decided to allow her to be generous to them.

  There was no thought of saving the bar. All of them wolfed them down before they left the big tent. They were walking through the crowd when Liam's stomach reported a malfunction. It had been given a taste of a meal and wanted more… He was already lost in the thought of his “bonus” bar.

  The crowd thinned out as they neared the edge of the park. There were no people when they crossed the four-lane avenue. Unlike everywhere else in the city, this street was completely clear of debris and derelict vehicles. It was an uninterrupted two-mile stretch of the Old World. Even the mansions had clean yards—mowed to boot.

  “What's the dealio? These people not get the memo the world died a couple weeks ago?” One of the bears asked to anyone who would listen.

  As Liam stepped on the curb and began traipsing through the yard of their target home, he thought of a recent zombie movie which featured, of all people, Bill Murray as himself. His mansion had everything a person could need to survive the Zombie Apocalypse, including a movie theater, but the heroes of the movie intruded and ruined it all for Mr. Murray.

  Just like I do. I ruin it for everyone I meet.

  Moments later, the group huddled on the large front stoop and Jason rang the doorbell.

  A face appeared in the curtains of a window near the door. It was an old man.

  “What do you want? I told you people to stay away,” he shouted with some difficulty.

  “Mr. Grubmeyer, we aren't refugees. We, ah, work for the hospital.”

  “Whatever it is, I don't want it. Go away.”

  The curtains swished and the man was gone. Jason and Lana traded looks. Before they could act, Liam spoke up. “If he doesn't want to come, we should let him go. There have to be others.”

  He didn't share his real reason for not wanting to press the issue with Hans. The man had found a piece of safety. Who were they to bring it all down for him?

  “Hey, don't worry. We get him, he gets tested, everyone's happy. Bippity Bam!” Jason smiled at Lana, though she was more reserved. Then he ran down the steps of the stoop, went to the nearby window where the face had last been seen, and used the butt of his rifle to crack the window. It shattered easily and the pieces rained down on Jason's boots.

  Jason was looking at the people on the stoop when Liam saw the thin barrel of a gun at the window. He tried to shout a warning, but Jason turned into it just as it went off. He fell backward to the grass and everyone else scattered. Most of them ran for the sides of the house, though Liam and Victoria fell onto the steps—out of the line of sight of the gun in the window.

  “I told you to stay out!” Shouted the old man.

  Jason sounded winded, but he managed to get out “We need him alive.”

  “Don't shoot!” Lana cried. She'd gone down the steps too, and waited while she looked at Jason. He'd managed to crawl himself up against the front wall of the big stone house. Mr. Grubmeyer would have to reach outside the window to shoot him. He pulled out his own rifle to be ready for that, even if it meant shooting the man they were trying to capture.

  “We don't want to hurt you.” Lana kept shouting.

  “You just wait! You'll get yours! You broke my window. You were coming to take me.”

  Liam saw how this was going to go down. Soon the man would be dead. Maybe Jason would be dead. His only hope was to engage the man and talk him down.

  He popped his head up. He couldn't see through the breezy white drapes. It was dark inside, made more so by the sunny day outside. The ten feet wouldn't give him any chance of avoiding any shots coming from inside. Victoria pulled him back down.

  “Liam, no.”

  “I have to try. He's going to get hurt.”

  “Well, he shot first.”

  She was right, as usual. But still…

  “Hey, Hans, my Grandma is 104. I rescued her from the city.”

  No response.

  “I rescued her from some bad CDC people. They pretended to want to find a cure. They were up to no good, so I got her out of there.”

  The man was quiet as he spoke. “They came here too early. I missed it all.”

  “Sir? What?”

  Now louder, he shouted. “I said I'm not going anywhere, don't you get it?”

  Liam's head was down, but he could see the top half of the window. The black shape of the barrel came out once more and he instinctively dropped his head. An instant later another shot came out.”

  “Dammit, I'm just talking!” Liam shouted up the steps.

  Another shot rang out, then there was a commotion inside. The man could be heard screaming, though Liam also heard what sounded like crying. The man was, if he was reading his sounds correctly, being subdued.

  When the front door opened, he knew he was right.

  All eyes turned to Jason.

  3

  Jason had been hit by a small caliber rifle. That's what he told those around Lana, who had tended to him. It pierced his camo t-shirt, but there was hardly any blood under his arm.

  “The old man can't shoot straight,” Jason chimed. “In other words, I got lucky. He grazed me.”

  They all moved inside and shut the front door. Two shots had just gone into the park, and Liam hoped they landed harmlessly in a tree or in the grass.

  When they got inside, it became clear why Hans had wanted to return home. It was completely jammed full with crates, boxes, and sealed five-gallon buckets. It reminded him of the home repair store he and his dad used to frequent—long before he was kicked out of the house. The mansion was incredible in scale, but the walkways were reduced to vertical crawlspaces to get through them.

&n
bsp; “What...is this place?” Jason croaked. He had his shirt off and Lana was tending a laughably small gauze pad for his gunshot wound.

  The man was breathing heavily under the guard of a man and a woman. His lever-action rifle had been tossed across the room, which wasn't that far with the crates.

  “You're ruining it! Ruining it! I have to wait for them.”

  “No, sir. You have to come with us. We need to get you over the medical center where they can help you.”

  Hans straightened at those words. “No, listen. I have to stay right here. They're supposed to come for me.”

  “The convoy?” Lana asked him.

  “What? No. Well, I don't know how they'll get here. But look at this place. I'm perfectly set up to live here until they get here.” He looked directly at Liam. “You. You can let me stay and I'll let you and your girl stay with me. We can defend it together, no?”

  Liam thought he could live out his entire life inside these walls with all the goodies he had stockpiled. And those boxes near the front door weren't old either. Dates were stamped boldly on many of them, and they were current. This had been delivered recently.

  “I just need to make one phone call and I can have rescue here to save us from those people out there.”

  “He's off his rocker,” said the short woman guarding him. Her rifle was pointed at the floor.

  Liam wandered around as they talked. Hallways departed in several directions from the main entryway of the front door. The story was the same in every direction. Boxes and more boxes.

  “This could feed a lot of people over in the park,” Victoria whispered to him.

  “Or a small group, for a long time,” he replied while wondering if that made him sound like a greedy bastard. Her only response was a head nod. Suddenly life had gotten a whole lot more complicated. Was their responsibility for the snowballers in their little group, or the large camp of survivors outside their front door. And, it wasn't even theirs. Hans still owned it, and to take it from him—no matter how valid the reason—would be an injustice.