Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “What are you guys doing out in the open?” he shouted.

  In response, several of the people shushed him, then waved him in. Seeing no immediate threats, he obliged. The closer he got, the worse the smell became. It appeared as if the group had scavenged through every dumpster in the city, and made sure to bring their prizes back to the park. Here he saw a huge mound of rolled up diapers. Next to it was a big pile of bones—from meat and fish, as best he could tell. Both piles were smothered by flies. Other stacks had bottles, cans, and newspapers, as if these people were conscientious about recycling. He tried to refrain from holding his nose, but when he got into...the trash fort, he had to pull his shirt over his nose to block the smell as best he could.

  “Yeah, it grows on ya, lil' dude,” said a man of unknown age. He was filthy beyond words, with a beard down to his sternum. It, and his hair, and indeed all of him, was covered in blotches of ketchup, mustard, blood, and much worse. Only his voice gave a clue to his older age, as it was rich and deep.

  “You live here?”

  “Mmm hmm. Since s'start.”

  The man's eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. Liam suspected the other people nearby were similarly affected. Perhaps there were toxins in the trash.

  “How? Aren't the zombies here?” He was sure they were. He and his mom had driven the tank not two blocks over. There were plenty of zombies around when they were in the armored Tiger, but none were visible right then.

  “Nah. Those sick dudes leave us...uh, alone.” The man pulled up his hand—which had been hidden—and put a hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth and took a deep drag, evidently satisfied. He puffed out the smoke, and Liam understood it wasn't quite a cigarette.

  He searched his literature. There should be no reason these people survived this long if they'd been in the park since day one. The thought of zombies staying away from trash didn't add up. As time went on, they were becoming more and more filthy, too. Being out in the elements for three weeks, combined with never taking a second to clean oneself, would make anyone a mess. He'd been lucky he'd spent so many adventures in and along rivers, as that gave him the opportunity to “hose off” once in a while. Also, back in Victoria's room, they capitalized on some of her cleaning products.

  The man was no longer looking at him and seemed to have no intention of speaking more.

  “Hey! Sir?”

  A slow turn. The man noticed him again. “Oh, yeah? I remember you. Got any papers?”

  Liam looked around. It made no sense.

  “No. I'm, uh, going to Forest Park. I saw you guys here and wondered why you haven't been...”

  A couple of flies bounced to and fro on the man's beard. His eyes showed no hope that he would finish the thought.

  “Well, you all should be dead,” he said with a tense laugh.

  A couple of other trash people wandered over, including one woman—again, he couldn't give her an age beyond older than him and younger than Grandma—wearing a full-length sun dress with faded paisley swirls. It might have been pretty at one time, but now it was covered in the same filth as the man's clothes. Like she'd been collecting trash and rolling in what came out of each bag. But she also had something on her arm. A kind of big rubber band up near her shoulder. The lower part of her arm was purple. He was tempted to say something, but it was too creepy. Surely she had to know her arm wasn't right?

  The man stroked his beard, which revealed a couple cigarette butts, a shiny blue pen cap, and a moving bug or two. He tried to focus on Liam. “We dead. Been dead for a lonnnng time.”

  Liam took a step back, into a nearby pile of empty trash bags. He jumped when one of them yelped. A small mangy-looking chihuahua hopped out. It fared no better than its humans.

  “Well, thanks for talking. I should get going.”

  “Wait. Have you seen ma' husband?” asked the woman.

  “No. Sorry.”

  She cussed heavily, and angrily. The thrust of her complaint was that her husband took off with the drugs. Others nearby were similarly agitated by the story.

  “Did you take his stuff?” she asked sadly.

  “I don't know about that. Sorry. I have to go, really.” This time, he purposely stepped into the pile of trash, through the same gap he entered.

  “Wait, kid,” said the bearded guy. He'd trailed Liam to the outer line of debris, and made like he didn't want the others to hear. After an impressive effort to steady himself, his eyes almost looked focused and normal. He expected to be let in on their survival secret.

  “Do you have any papers?”

  Liam had known a few stoners in school. The type of kids who smoked weed and partied hard on the weekends. Several of them, he found through friends, actually got their “agriculture” from their parents—because they saw no harm in it. But that was about the limit of his exposure to drugs. He'd heard about harder stuff—smack, spank, crank, or whatever it was called, but his friends weren't in that scene. His group spent their money on Mountain Dew and monthly subscriptions to their online games.

  But these people. They'd been afflicted in the worst way by drugs. He could see that now.

  Do drugs make a person so dead inside even the zombies don't want them?

  The incident would have to go in his book. He'd try to get back here, someday, and see if he could figure it out. For now...

  “Good luck to you,” he said in a normal voice. If any of them heard him—they were looking right at him—they said nothing to show it. The woman spoke to herself in low, angry tones, and the man continued to stare straight ahead. Others picked through trash or sat dejectedly on the benches. One man stood against a telephone pole and repeatedly struck it with his head.

  He turned and ran into the street again, seeking cleaner air.

  5

  He ran two blocks before seeing zombies again. Ahead, several loitered near the broken windows of a row of sandwich shops and trendy boutiques. A few more hovered near a super-long black RV tipped over in the middle of an intersection. They seemed lethargic, rather than their usual roaming selves, but he figured they'd not seen prey in a while. Somehow they'd missed the action with the tanks and gunfire further back in the city.

  He backtracked a block, hoping to use a safer cross street, but both directions had zombies standing around. He studied the area, hoping not to have to return to the trashy area. Running past them was an option, too, but he didn't think it was smart to run toward the zombies if he didn't have to, yet.

  On the other side of the street, there was a low-rise structure with a huge word spray-painted on the front brick wall which said “SAFE” with an arrow pointing to a single wooden door.

  Better safe, than sorry, eh old bean?

  His imaginary voice sometimes carried a British accent.

  He ran for the door, disappointed to see several of the zombies on the other side of the road turn as they heard him approach.

  Luckily, they didn't come running. He was too fast for them to have any chance of catching him, even if they did.

  The door was unlocked, so he pushed through and stepped into a narrow hallway. Steps leading up to another level were about ten feet beyond the entrance. Once the door was closed, he held it—and his breath—to see if the zombies would follow and bang on the door. He was sure they would...but a minute went by, and nothing happened.

  “That's odd,” he whispered.

  He stood up straight and collected his wits. A small window above the door allowed a little light into the chamber, but it remained dark and stuffy. Safety meant many things these days, and having a door between him and the zombies was close enough to it.

  “Let's see what's upstairs,” he murmured to himself.

  He took two steps and then felt the sensation of free fall. The wooden floor had given way, and he dropped almost straight down. His reflexes kicked in, and he managed to cushion his fall on the hard floor and roll himself forward to further save himself.

  On all fours, he caught his breath from the fal
l and the fright of it. He'd been totally off guard.

  Are things falling apart this quickly?

  There would be no more maintenance of infrastructure…

  His thoughts were squelched by the moans of zombies.

  The hole he'd fallen through had covered itself back up. He couldn't see the light from above. There was no light at all, now.

  A quiet realization fell upon him, and he was silent while he tried to solve the puzzle.

  He'd spent enough time at night with zombies around to know their sound, and he had some experience judging distance in the dark. Some of the more distant zombies were calling out from a long way away. Others were very close. He was in a large chamber.

  He pulled off his backpack and his rifle. An overpowering urge toward silence compelled him to move with painfully slow motions. As if disturbing the air was all it would take to bring the zombies to him. For all he knew, there was a type of zombie that could hone in on air movements. He froze for a long time…

  The zipper on the pack echoed off the far wall; he was sure of that. The friction between his hand and the canvas bag had all the subtlety of an explosive new movie. Removing the flashlight from his other gear was the final insult that would get him killed. Each second he was sure he'd feel the touch.

  But it didn't come.

  An eternity later he had the flashlight in his hand, but he was as afraid of turning it on as he was of sitting there in the dark. The cacophony of sound had grown louder as if they all fed off each other. He was convinced there were hundreds of zombies in the room with him…

  This is why I need Victoria with me.

  Despite everything, thinking about her put a tiny smile on his face. He imagined how mad she'd be if she knew he wished she was there, in the dark, with zombies screaming for her blood, just so he would have the courage to turn on a flashlight.

  Still, it sat unlit in his hand.

  He hoped his eyes would adjust to the darkness. He sought any illumination to try to get a sense of things. Even in the pit mine, there were dim lights enough he could see.

  He tried the trapdoor again, but his hands couldn't touch anything up there. He couldn't crawl blindly through a room full of zombies. And he wasn't ready to die in place.

  Just pretend Victoria is here.

  “You ready for this, girlfriend?”

  “Let's do this, boyfriend.”

  The flashlight switched on with a loud click.

  Even with the diffuse beam of the flashlight, he was glad Victoria wasn't there to see it.

  6

  He was in a long hallway. On the right side, a concrete wall. On the other...

  He swept the light to his left. It was a metal cage. Several zombies had their arms through the metal links. Reaching for him. He was nauseated to see the arms had been stripped of skin, as if they'd been pushed and pulled through the rough metal cage—it was a type of chain link enclosure—for a very long time.

  The nature of the trap was revealed. Before the plague, it had been a kennel for dogs. A long line of ten-foot tall chain link cages faded away in the darkness. He'd fallen on the service walkway where attendants could walk the dogs to their cages. A small, broken chair was the only thing near him.

  He recoiled toward the wall, dismayed to see he would have to walk the gauntlet by all the cages if he had any hope of escaping. The nearest cage had four or five zombies. He used the light to get a better look at them.

  The visual registered on his retinas, but he didn't allow the data to reach his brain.

  He hefted his pack over his shoulders, then picked up his rifle.

  “You can do this,” he said aloud.

  The whole row of cages became animated. They had a human target.

  Liam felt for the concrete and began to slide his shoulder along the cool wall. With his pack on, he didn't want to face the cages, but he didn't want to face the wall, either, lest he get grabbed by his backpack.

  He stopped when he felt a finger touch his shoulder.

  “Screw this!”

  Working fast, he dropped the backpack to the floor and pressed his back up against the wall. Using the light, he was able to judge the distance better. There was no way anything could reach him while he was against the wall.

  He put his foot through a loop of the pack, then used his foot to pull it on the slick floor.

  The cages became a pandemonium of noise. He looked a second time but didn't allow himself to see who was inside.

  Some zombies moaned in the traditional dirge of the dead. Those were “typical” specimens. A few yelps and whoops called out from up and down the row. Those were the “call to arms” model he recognized from his run-ins with them. He assumed they were the ones spinning up all the others. But there was something new in the mix. A constant humming sound, which he nearly found sad. It was like an opera singer—a woman—carrying the same melodious note for as long as she could. It was only broken when the singer needed to fill her lungs again.

  He braced himself, thinking the goal was to make him give up. A kind of aural equivalent of the dreamer zombies, who seemed to operate through the use of smell. If he could be made to hallucinate through smell, there was no reason to doubt he could fall victim to sound...but he couldn't hold a gun and a flashlight and cover both his ears at the same time.

  Finally, mid-way down the row of cages, he smelled the tell-tale sickly sweet syrup.

  “Hey Victoria, there's one of each kind of zombie in here. How funny is that?”

  “I know, right.”

  Still, he ignored how the zombies were dressed.

  “We have to keep moving,” he said to motivational Victoria.

  He kept his eyes forward, and couldn't help notice a cage had bowed outward. It had a particularly rambunctious group of large zombies inside, and they pushed the dog cage to its limit. While the largest were unable to put their arms through, a smaller zombie with very long arms was able to almost touch the wall. As he got there, it became evident the cage had been ripped from its foundation. The entire thing had moved toward the wall.

  The noise was approaching jet turbine levels of insanity.

  “I can talk to myself because I can't hear myself think,” he laughed.

  “You zombies are so stupid...”

  “How stupid are we?” he said in a feminine voice.

  “You're so stupid...” In the mayhem he was unable to think of a suitable insult. Nothing he could say would make this room right. Not even humor.

  He crouched down and wrapped the backpack strap around his leg as best he could. Then he got on all fours and crawled as fast as he could. The zombie in the busted cage could have reached him if she'd gotten down, but she was too busy reaching for him from the standing position.

  Maybe the woman sensed what she'd missed because she began to “sing.” It was a stark contrast to the anger and violence swirling through all the other cages. That said, it did nothing to lessen his anxiety as none of this made a lick of sense.

  He directed the light ahead, praying for a door. Something to take him out of this nightmare.

  The beam reflected off one of the cages ahead. Through the hallway of remaining arms, he could see the cage door was slightly ajar, as if it had been left open. Still on his hands, he crawled the remaining distance, never looking up at the standing zombies.

  Each cage had three or four specimens, leading him to an estimate of fifty or so people, though they made noise for several times that many. This was an important math problem to solve because if the door of the last cage was open, he had to know how many runaways were playing hide and seek.

  The last cage in the row was empty.

  Across from the open cage door, there was a narrow opening in the wall. It had to be the way up.

  Without looking back, or thinking about what he'd seen, he untangled his pack and pulled it over one shoulder as he regained his feet.

  When his light touched the stairway up, it illuminated one of the escapees.
<
br />   He felt lucky it was so loud. No one heard him scream like a school girl.

  Chapter 2: Midnight Foxes

  The sole's of Liam's feet froze on the cement.

  The woman lay sprawled as if sliding up the stairs. Her platinum blonde hair was filthy and matted, as he'd expect any zombie to be these days. He fumbled for his AK-47. It got caught up in his backpack strap, and then he had trouble releasing the safety. With sweaty hands, he engaged the charging handle, but it kicked out an unspent round as it fed in the next. He'd forgotten he'd already done that.

  He took a step back.

  Her head came off the riser and turned, seeking the light.

  He brought his rifle to bear at the exact moment the woman's face came into view.

  Two things happened simultaneously: Liam fired the gun, and the woman hoarsely cried, in English, the words “Help me.”

  The shock of the gunshot was obscene in the tiny staircase. He dropped his flashlight in panic and had enough time to wonder if he really saw—and heard—what he imagined he did. A living woman.

  He scrambled for the light as it rolled on the floor.

  “Don't shoot!” the woman screamed. It took a shout to overcome his ringing ears and the general din of the terrors in the cages.

  He seized the flashlight, and held it on the floor for a few seconds, as if giving the scene time to settle down. If he brought up his gun and lit up the woman once more, he was afraid he'd shoot her.

  The woman cried. A soft cooing background noise in the general chaos of the basement. Raising the flashlight, she remained sprawled out on several steps. Her face was down again.

  “I won't shoot you,” he called out over the noise.

  Her response evaporated into the shouting and moaning.

  He leaned in close, tapping her on her bare shoulder. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fire my gun.”

  Though she wasn't watching, he set the gun down on the bottom step.

  “See, I don't have a gun now.”

  The woman lifted her head, unsure. Her face was filthy, her hair was a blitz of frizz and dirt, but her eyes were full of life.

  He tilted the flashlight so it wouldn't shine in her face, hoping that would help reinforce his non-violent intentions. Deep down, his own fear was growing because he'd almost killed her for no good reason. Giving the gun to the man in the other stairwell was merely facilitating a suicide. This would have been murder.