He was certain he saw two shadows zoom across the open ground. It could only mean the Warthogs were searching for them…
If they haven't found us already.
3
The tank idled under the bridge. Lana had scraped the side of the center pier, keeping them hidden underneath while they tried to see where the planes had gone.
“They're drones are going to find us before the planes...”
His mom's voice was oddly comforting in his headphones. Despite being in a life-or-death situation, she reminded him of better times, and it bolstered his spirits. The fact she was driving a tank, and he was watching drone footage up in the skies above him, did nothing to change his point of view.
“We'll have to run for it. Two blocks to the north we can get between those buildings and then zig zag through the last few blocks until we reach the tallest building in St. Louis. That's where we're going. That's where the Patriot Snowball moved their most important people.”
“Including you?” His dad's letter said as much.
“We'll see who's there. Then you can decide how important I am.”
One of the shadows appeared over the parking lot. It moved from north to south, very fast.
“One of them just passed overhead. I don't know where the other one went.”
The tank jumped forward. “I'm going for it.”
“Screw it.” Liam popped the hatch and poked his head out into the cooler, and fresher air. The tank left the shadow of the bridge just as he got in his position. While getting a better view of the plane was a priority, he had a different problem to deal with.
He pulled the Glock from his pocket. The zombie he'd seen long ago on the top of the tank was still there. It required him to crane his neck over the side of the turret, but he was able to see why the zombie had remained where it was. It was slurping on a slick patch of blood coating the front deck of the tank.
Liam aimed the gun at the frumpy woman's head. She wore summer clothes—shorts and short-sleeved shirt—but the colors were muted by dried blood. Her long hair was pointed up in the air, like she'd gone to sleep with wet blood in her hair and then woke up and kept it that way. His first shot went high, clipping the crusty hair.
That got her attention. The speed of some zombies was astonishing. She popped up the instant the shot whizzed by her. However, she lacked any grace. The zombie slipped on the bloody mess in which she'd been kneeling, and fell backward. With the forward motion of the tank she was unable to right herself and she tumbled off the left edge, bounced off the track guards, and fell out of sight.
The words double tap screamed at him, but the woman was on the ground. She'd fallen face first and her neck looked even worse than it did before she fell. A few stumbles were all she could muster in pursuit, and he judged that shooting her would be a waste of ammo.
She'll be the one that gets me, in the end.
He looked back one more time, wondering if he'd just jinxed himself. If there weren't predators flying overhead they could do a loop so he could strike her down. It's the only way to be sure…
They'd cleared half the distance when the A-10 came in low and slow behind them. He'd been watching that direction because it was the only way they could be attacked. The buildings ahead provided a screen. Unless they were in a movie, the planes wouldn't be flying sideways between buildings to get at them.
The buzzing sound from the plane came after the rounds landed on the roadway ahead of them. Some of them skipped on the pavement and shattered many windows in the buildings ahead. As it did each time he heard it, the sound of the Warthog’s rotating Gatling gun reminded him of the horns of the Apocalypse. He instinctively dropped into the turret to shield himself, but his rational mind knew nothing could save him if the bird had the correct bead on them.
The bridge saved them on the first pass. The hog had to fire over the top of the highway and that didn't give it enough room to point its nose downward. Liam watched as the pilot kicked the plane in the gut and bank it hard right as it screamed eastward. He figured the pilot could see, the same as him, that the tank would be inside that kill zone by the time he looped around for a second strike. In moments the plane was gone, leaving Liam to wonder how much time they had left.
“Mom, he's coming around. He's going to have us.”
He dropped back into his seat on the interior, a plan forming in his cluttered mind. The monitor still displayed the video feed of the second little drone. It seemed to be on remote as it had been following them on their drive without any guidance from a person. Yet it seemed likely—
“There you are.”
A little joystick was attached to a small box set off to the side of the screen. It was lost in the darkness of a nook in the wall, but he pulled it out and watched with relief as the drone shifted position with his adjustment. Years of video gaming yielded high dividends in that moment as he turned it so the camera faced south—where the Warthog would replicate its last strafing run. There were a lot of things he didn't know about flying it, but the only one that mattered was how far away it would go. That would determine whether his stupid plan would work or not.
The A-10 showed up as a dot. As expected, it was flying just above the tops of the low buildings in this part of the city, and it was going so slow he expected it to fall right out of the sky. The pilot had timed it perfectly as the Tiger would be in the meat of where the rounds fell on the last run.
His drone hovered over the top of the raised highway behind them. The cars and trucks on top were frozen in time—from the early roadblocks and bridge closures. The drone steadily watched to the south. The dot grew in size. The distinctive shape of the A-10 Warthog could not be mistaken from the front. Its wings were very nearly flat, like one long plank supporting the narrow airframe in the middle. The twin-turbine engines hung off the back like a burly weightlifter hauling two kegs on his shoulders. If there was one thing Liam remembered about the plane, it was its survivability. It could almost lose a full wing and still make it back to base…
Which made his task that much harder.
With fine adjustments he moved the drone into position in front of a sleek white bus. He kept the drone at the bridge, as he had the line where the plane and the drone would meet. Now he only needed the pilot to see it, so he dipped the drone almost to the top of the white bus. The black drone and the white paint might catch his eye…
The Warthog closed in a few seconds, and Liam lifted the little bird so it would appear in front of the pilot's canopy or his own video feed—he had no idea how an A-10 pilot would see the battlefield. In the two seconds he had before it could angle down on him and his mom, he jinked the joystick and tried to maneuver the drone so it would go into the Warthog's spinning engine. He'd seen it done in a movie and hoped it would blow off.
His ham-handed attempt seemed laughable as the tiny drone and the huge plane came together. But, to his shock, the pilot lifted his plane so he would miss the drone, and then continued upward without firing his chaingun, repeating the steep bank he'd done before.
He threw down the joystick and jumped up to see out his hatch again. They'd entered the safety of the tall buildings.
I doubt anyone would believe what just happened.
4
Skyscrapers greeted them with welcoming arms, but the streets remained hostile. Zombies were thicker around the great symbols of modern man, as if they retained the memories of all they represented. Or, he surmised, they grouped up on the urban streets because they were too stupid to figure out how to get out of town.
Yeah, that. I want you zombies to stay stupid...
The Tiger turned a corner, heading east. Liam watched from his perch in the hatch on the turret. The echo of the A-10's gun reverberated in the valley of the skyscrapers, making it impossible to tell where the sounds originated. Since his own tank wasn't under attack, it had to be Jason's taking fire. Lana tried to call Jason on the radio, but didn't get anything back.
A strong explosio
n rumbled somewhere nearby, suggesting they weren't just using death-dealing Gatling guns.
“Gettin' close.”
He almost responded with relief when he saw a plane in the distance. It was far away—beyond the Arch to the east—but a puff of smoke caught his eye. It was suddenly a huge danger.
“Mom, turn!”
“Where, Liam? We're almost there.”
“Just freakin' turn!” he screamed.
That was enough to get her attention. The Tiger slowly banked left onto a cross street, ignoring the infected zombies shambling in the street. He dropped into the turret and held his breath. The missile was definitely heading directly for them, down the length of the main street between the tall city blocks.
The heat of the explosion came in through the opening above him. A shockwave rocked the tank, but otherwise they were unharmed.
“Good call,” echoed distantly in his 'phones.
He was up and looking back. The zombies in the intersection had been knocked down, but not vaporized as he expected, by the near-miss. His eyes scanned both directions along the smaller avenue—searching for more missiles—but the buildings to the north and south were aligned so that nothing could shoot them from a distance. Of course, a crafty pilot could drop something on them from directly above, but that was a threat he didn't want to consider just yet.
Or rockets.
Or suicide drones.
Or a nuke.
There were a million and one ways to die in the Zombie Apocalypse.
“We have to turn onto the next street and head east for one more block.”
An old cartoon popped in his head. Everyone was running from door to door in a long hallway and you could never guess from which door the characters would pop out next. It was random and unpredictable—and it gave him an idea.
“Mom. Turn the tank around. They'll be waiting for us on this next street. They won't be looking for us on the last one.”
The tank stopped before they'd reached the intersection. She worked the controls to spin them around.
“You're clever, like your father.”
My dead father…
He felt his elation drain out. Still happy he said something smart, but remembering his father at that moment was too much to bear. They swung left onto the main road they'd just vacated—Liam saw a fire still burning on the first floor of the office building where the missile had gone when it missed them. The lobby entryway would never be the same, though the destruction wasn't as devastating as he assumed it'd be. They were firing tank killers, not bunker busters.
Lana gunned the engine as they veered erratically around the zombies wandering the roadway. Some she hit out of necessity, but she made an honest effort to miss them. He was unsure how he felt about that. Killing them was horrible, but leaving them alive was equally frightening. Every body on this street would need to be put down at some point...
His eyes willed a “dot” not to show up on the horizon. The devilish call of the A-10 sounded from elsewhere in the city, but it wasn't on their street. For a second he saw the gray plane from the side. It was by the Arch grounds. The tank started to drift to the right.
“Hang on. We're going in!”
The tank crunched a newspaper kiosk, a couple trash cans, and headed for the glass facade of one of newer-looking skyscrapers on the street. He ducked into his hiding place just as the Tiger breached the translucent entryway. Glass tinkled down on top of the tank, though only small shards found their way into the turret hatch.
The Tiger sounded louder in the enclosed space, and it came to a stop at the moment Liam got the nerve to stand and look outside once more. The lobby was simple, with several businesses on the ground floor, and plenty of room for a tank in the middle. Lana had driven it well inside—away from the windows.
“Grab your gun. They'll follow us in, I'm sure.”
It was understood what she meant, though now it could also mean missiles, drones, or soldiers.
He had his AK-47 in hand, still with a round wedged in the chamber he needed to clear, and climbed from the hatch. Almost as if by magic, the drone that he'd used to scare off the A-10—that was his story—flew in through the big hole in the front of the building, returned to the tank, and tucked itself back into the box on the back of the turret. The other drone box was still open, and Liam felt an irrational sadness, as that piece of equipment would never again return.
He climbed down to the tiled floor and ran toward the stairwell nearby.
“No! This isn't the building. We have to cross the street,” she yelled as she ran, rifle in hand, toward the hole opened by the tank.
“Why?”
“Travis would kill me if I parked the tank in his building. It would give him away,” she laughed, but there was fear in her voice. “Now hurry.”
She was outside before he could say another word.
He slung his rifle as he cleared the glass frontage. The crunch of broken glass a distant distraction. There were too many zombies zeroing in on them.
“Just run!” His mom was already into the street.
The pistol was in his hand, though he had no idea how many rounds he had left. That mystery could get him killed…
Lana made it to the far side, turned around, and whacked two zombies that had gotten close to him. He felt he could outpace them, but she saw them as a threat. He wasn't complaining.
As he caught up to her, she turned and they ran together up to the building directly across from where she'd parked the Tiger. The doors were locked, as he expected, and the revolving door wouldn't budge, so Lana put a round through one of the front windows. The glass shattered and she stepped through. He was about to do the same when something glanced off his head. He instinctively ducked, though laughably too late.
A woman zombie in a torn business suit stood tentatively behind a decorative tree nearby. She'd thrown something—a little bottle of soda!
Monkey's fling poop. This isn't intelligence.
He stepped through, thinking about flying bricks and other dangerous objects. Always something to be worried about.
They were inside a huge sophisticated-looking lobby. Two escalators—frozen without power—rose to a balcony level above. Large plants and small trees tastefully decorated the area, though numerous sitting areas near them had been ruined. It looked as if a riot had come through here. Not hard to imagine.
They ran over the tiled floor to the escalator. It was unnatural to put his foot on it and not get carried upward, but he sprinted up the steps with a tired effort.
As they reached the top, Lana halted. The view of the tank inside the lobby across the street was too much for either to pass up. She had parked it as far inside as she could get it. Nothing could shoot it from the air—unless missiles could turn sideways—though anyone driving by couldn't miss the path of destruction leading up to and inside that building.
From his vantage point, he could see a magnificent glass chandelier hung just above the tank, highlighting two pieces of Old World technology that seemed out of place in this new one. Of all the crazy things, Liam realized it was the chandelier that didn't really fit anymore. The weapon of war was currently the only thing useful to their survival.
And my mom just drove us across a hostile city in it.
He looked ahead, wondering if this day was ever going to make sense. The cry of zombies entering the lobby reinforced his suspicion it never would.
5
The zombies were coming in from both directions on the street, as if they all knew the destruction wrought by the tank was going to lead them to blood. A few stumbled into the lobby across the street, but more came to the hole in the glass they'd used to get into their current building. He wanted to run, but the science of it drew him in.
How the hell are they doing this?
Was it movement that attracted them? Noise? Smell? He'd likened them to bloodhounds a couple times over the past weeks, but there had to be limits. Did they continue to track him no matte
r how far he went? Maybe they did, and he'd just been moving too far and fast to notice. Now, somehow, they knew the tank was empty but this lobby had live bait.
That got him moving. There were too many variables to consider, and having bloodhound zombies that were going to follow him to the ends of the earth was one irrational fear he didn't want to carry. But he'd seen all kinds of...skills. Chicago zombies could climb. Other zombies could project some kind of smell that could make people do crazy things. Maybe St. Louis zombies excelled at following prey. And at least one knew how to toss bottles.
Taking it to its conclusion, it could mean all those zombies that he'd seen over the past weeks had followed him out of St. Louis, chased him across the county, then followed him to Cairo, Illinois. Did they follow him back up the river, and into the pit mine? Were they even now stacking themselves up with all those zombies he'd seen down in the mine so they could escape from the open grave? A horrible, never-ending stream of undead spewing forth from the cemetery plot…
He shivered. It was very unlikely, and driven by his imagination under stress, but so much of what he'd seen so far had been unlikely. Zombies themselves were fictional creatures, yet here they were. Here he was living the fiction. If zombies were real, it wasn't a stretch to think they could follow him forever.
More zombies came into the lobby. One slid on the glass and fell, but most kept their feet. The bulk of them went for the steps—he was the only living thing they could see—but a few went for different parts of the lobby.
He organized his thoughts around tossing a curse at them, but he held it in. No sense alerting them all to his presence. As he stepped away from the railing he honed in on where his mom had gone.”
“Hurry,” she said from across the wide, posh lobby.
She was at a door, holding it open. The industrial carpet covered his footfalls and he raced fifty feet without looking back. He rushed into the darkness, and she pulled the door closed.
A few zombies arrived at the door only a few seconds later. He didn't even know runners were following.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 136