Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7

by Isherwood, E. E.

  “Actually,” Victoria continued, “I’ve been to the top floor. Talked to Mr. Deveraux about work you’d done on the cure.”

  He seemed taken aback. “Well. There you go. You’ve hitched yourself to my fate. And when was that?”

  “Today. He gave us approval to pull blood from a local man—105-years-old—who lives just across the street from the park. I’m here tonight because Doctor Yu was uncomfortable with your experiments.”

  “She’s a good Doc. Now it all makes sense. I thought it was strange how this all went down. You kids show up blabbing to the authorities, probably trying to make yourselves look important, and you pull me into this, in effect destroying all the work we’ve been doing—”

  “You said you used the fake name that brought her here. You can’t blame us.”

  “So it's a total coincidence you talked to Bos this very day, and then he comes over here collecting information about his research team?”

  She looked sheepish.

  “That’s what I thought.” He took a deep breath. “OK, I admit I may have had some culpability with this. It doesn’t matter, in the end. She’s coming, and she’s bringing revenge with her. It’s how these people operate. They’re all a little unhinged.”

  I know someone that fits that mold. I’m looking right at him…

  “And she’s going to find us if we don’t take measures to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He turned very serious. “I know you hate me for what I’ve done. I’ve created a monster with this virus—”

  And you shot me. Don’t forget that one!

  She felt like rubbing that in his face, but his tone and sudden seriousness wasn’t Hayes at all. He was scared.

  “—but I’ve been trying to atone for my mistake by working on the cure. You see that, right?”

  He waved his hands at the video screens. The monitor with the zombies moving at fast-forward was looping as if to support his words.

  “Liam said you lie about everything. I absolutely trust him. As much as I absolutely don’t trust you. For all I know this is an elaborate plan you’ve set up to capture Grandma again.”

  He was going to speak, but she held up her hand, much as he had done moments before. “But. In this instance, I do believe you. It sounds nuts on the face of it, but every NIS person I’ve met has had a streak of crazy in them. Including you.”

  “Thanks. I—”

  She held up her hand again, more forcefully, she imagined.

  “I’m not done! The first thing we need to do is find Liam. He’s supposed to return to Forest Park after he does...a task...for his mother.” She danced around why he was really out of the park. He was getting a tank for the mysterious Hans Grubmeyer. A man who had already been brought up in her conversation with Hayes. A man who seemed to tie them all together. “He’ll be returning to the home of Mr. Grubmeyer.”

  “Aged 105?”

  “The very same.”

  “I have to ask. Who else knows about Liam’s, ahh, task? Is it something that would have been told to others? Over radio, perhaps? Where is he?”

  She wasn’t going to tell him where he was. Even torture couldn’t do that—she prayed. But his question about who else knew was a tough one. Hans knew, of course. Some of the Patriot Snowball people knew. Liam’s mom knew. Jason Hawkes knew. In a few moments she had a list of over ten people. It suddenly seemed like a major security hole.

  “I think a lot of people know, but I don’t think they would be sloppy with that knowledge.”

  Hayes stood up and stretched like he was prepping for a foot race. “Step 1 is to get out of this building. It will be a priority of the strike team. Step 2, we can try to find Liam, but we can’t waste a lot of time. Our own priority should be finding transport out of here. We have to get to Grandma.”

  “Ah ha!” she echoed herself, “You are trying to capture her.”

  “Yes, you caught me,” he said in monotone. Then, in his regular voice, “You still don’t understand. If I wanted Marty now, I would just ask you. You can see what we’re doing here. Progress is being made, and it doesn’t involve the unfortunate deaths of my early research. You have to see that.”

  She stood, unmoved.

  “OK. I have a helicopter, which you know. I could have drugged you and put you on the copter and forced you to take me to Grandma—”

  She rose to that. Her own experience being forced to do anything was something he couldn’t know.

  He must have seen the anger in her eyes. “No, please! I’m trying to make you see there are a million ways this could go down, but I truly want you as my partner. For God’s sake, I don’t need more enemies.”

  She fumed internally but didn’t know what to say. He was speaking the truth, even if she hated him for his insinuation.

  “I’m staying because I want to help you find Liam. Once you two are together, and calmed down,” he said with a test of mirth, “we can focus on helping your Grandma. She is the most vulnerable of us all because she will stand out wherever she is.”

  “And then you want to run tests on her,” she said with the remains of her anger.

  “Yes. I’ll be honest about that. But this time I need to take blood, not inject it. I know my word isn’t worth anything to you, but on my honor that’s the truth. I believe she can help us get this cure correct.”

  “But we won’t have anywhere to do your research. We can’t come back here, can we?”

  “We’ll have to deal with that when we get there. Maybe there’s a research lab where she is?”

  He was fishing for her location. Torn whether to divulge the information or not, she felt she wasn’t quite ready to trust him. At the very least she wanted other people around when she told him. That way he couldn’t drug her, or otherwise coerce her to do his bidding. She didn’t think he was lying about what he was telling her. It all added up in an insane way. And that’s what troubled her the most.

  You can’t trust him, girl. N-O, no!

  Chapter 7: Run, Girl, Run

  Hayes stood to go out the door, but paused and turned back to her.

  “Before we go, I have to ask. What do you see in that boy?”

  Victoria had been prepared to leave, so it was about the last thing she expected. “Uh, what?”

  “Liam. It’s cute how you two found each other in the disaster, but you don’t seem to have much in common, you know? Classy girl in a black dress. An unkempt boy chasing after his Great-Grandma.”

  The situation came into focus. It was the middle of the night, in a building that had been cleared by Hayes so he could conduct ‘somewhat-illegal’ experiments in peace. If he wanted to take advantage of her, there wasn’t much she could do to stop him, though she would try. He was married—so he said—but he was also NIS, which was becoming synonymous with doing the least likely thing she could imagine.

  That’s not gonna happen.

  While he stood at the door, she remained by the video controls, searching for a weapon. He seemed to take that as assent to continue speaking.

  “It’s just that...well, you’re so pretty...”

  The desk had nothing she could use as a weapon. A red stapler. A small pen. Spiral notebooks.

  “When Jane and I got married, it was more or less arranged. We had a few great years. Even had a daughter. But in the organization, the biggest factor in marriage is how the two families can benefit each other. My family had extensive inroads in the medical community. Hers was—”

  He smiled at her.

  “—actually, that’s classified.” He sighed, with a touch of sadness. She couldn’t tell if it was real, or simulated. “The old habits die hard. I would never do anything to hurt her, even if I don’t love her. And her father saved my ass...”

  Hayes went on, describing their relationship in more detail than she really cared to know. The takeaway was that he seemed to be putting himself on the market for romance, which was precisely the wrong thing to do, given her own background. More than that, it was the w
rong thing to do to any woman in this situation. That he didn’t see that made her angry at how stupid he was.

  “...I guess what I’m saying is that I look at you—a bright future in the medical field—and him and his future in, um, zombie slaying, and I don’t see the draw. You know?”

  Hayes hadn’t moved from the door. No weapons magically appeared for her. She wasn’t sure she’d need one, but ‘zombie slayer’ Liam would insist she always have one. The irony of no weapons in the security monitoring station didn’t escape her.

  “What, exactly, is your point?” she said defensively.

  He studied her. She wondered if he was sizing her up, until he looked at the door itself, then back at her. “Oh! No, it isn’t like that.” He held out his arms and waved her to go through the door. “No, this isn’t a proposition. I’m much too old for you,” he laughed.

  “Then what is this all about?”

  When they were outside the door in the moonlit hallway, he spoke while she moved to the far side of the door. She was free to run if she wanted.

  “My point is very simple. You don’t need Liam, right now. He chose to go off and do, whatever you said he was doing, and you have the opportunity to help him and everyone else, here.”

  “You want me to abandon him?”

  “No, of course not. Just give him a break, like he did to you.”

  He was way off. She was the one who chose not to go with him, but she saw where he was going with this.

  “Not that it matters, but Liam saved my life. Several times.”

  “He got you into those situations,” he interjected.

  She laughed. “Did he get me shot by your team? Is that really what you’re saying?” she said, almost daring him to respond. When he said nothing, she went on. “No, now isn’t the time to sit by and do nothing. Liam and his grandma believe each person has to step up and try to save the world. Some people are boarding up the windows of their homes, intending to die in place. Others are running to the North Pole, or wherever they think they’ll find safety. But Liam has chosen to go into danger so he can help everyone. That’s part of why I need him.”

  “But you don’t need him right now. We can go off, grab Grandma, and collect him later.”

  There was some truth to that. She did voluntarily let him go with his mom. But she needed the time alone to—lay her old life to rest. It had nothing to do with him, other than she needed to exit the Liam roller coaster just long enough to tend to her own affairs. Thinking about him in this context made her grateful how easy he’d made it for her. He didn’t complain when she pretty much insisted she needed to do this by herself. It reinforced every feeling she had for him.

  Though Hayes stood nearby, she felt the smile on her face as she recalled their moment behind the big tree after they’d escaped from St. Louis. She thought she’d have to kiss him first, but after she’d pulled him behind the tree—away from the eyes of the police and other refugees—he’d figured out her clever plan and leaned in to kiss her. It was short but so worth it.

  When they were done, she whispered a thank you in his ear. He probably thought it was because he’d helped her get out of the city, but it was much larger than that. He’d given her hope to look ahead, finally, after being on the run from her life since that dark night in the Colorado woods. That feeling of escape washed over her once more, and she knew Hayes wouldn’t understand.

  “No. You’ve got to trust me on that. There is no way I’d leave this camp without Liam. Case closed.” She folded her arms across her chest. It felt pouty, but her point was made.

  Liam, please hurry.

  2

  “I—” Hayes began. He looked down the hall, past her.

  “Wha—”

  He shushed her. In the creepy hallway, there was no need to question him. She watched his face. His finger remained over his lips, as if he still saw the object behind her.

  It took thirty seconds, then he sprang for the open door of the control room, trying to pull her in. She hesitated to go back in, after all they’d just discussed, but relented.

  Hayes whispered. “There’s someone at the far end of the hall.”

  “A guard?”

  “I sent the guards outside. I wanted to be alone with you.”

  She looked at him with a frown.

  “No, not like that. I wanted to be able to talk to you without being overheard. The NIS is still a hidden organization. I didn’t want to endanger those men’s lives by getting them involved.”

  It seemed reasonable, though that made her more suspicious of the entire chain of events tonight. He was always thinking ahead.

  And I’m always thinking behind.

  The realization was important, but she tucked it away for another day. If the guards were gone…

  “A student perhaps? Out for a moonlight stroll?” she said it to be funny, but it didn’t ring true. Even in the brief time she’d spent with the research students, they’d seemed frightened and pliable. The days of midnight pranks were long gone.

  “No. I followed you through the tunnel and locked the gate.”

  She didn’t know there even was a gate down there, but it made sense.

  “I don’t suppose you told the guards to lock the doors, did you?”

  Hayes was at the edge of the door, peeking out. When he came back in, he looked at her with a yes nod. “I needed to make sure you and I had this meeting. The guards were instructed to keep the doors locked, and they wouldn’t have done it any other way. There are zombies in this building, and the safety of the whole camp depends on them staying in here.”

  She looked at him like he’d just stepped in dog dirt.

  “What? You think I knew this would happen?”

  “You locked yourself into a building with zombies. What did you think was going to happen?”

  He looked past her.

  “The monitors.”

  As quietly as he could, he pulled the door shut. It had a stout security deadbolt, which he secured.

  “We’ll be safe in here,” he assured her. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

  At the security desk, the feeds showed different parts of the building. The only one turned off was the one in her dorm room. He pointed to the screen where the patients were under observation. The zombies that were previously walking around the bedded patients were no longer there. The front door was propped open.

  They watched the screens. One of the walking zombies showed up on the stairs. Moving down to the basement. In the strange infrared vision, she could only say it was a woman in a dress.

  After a time, a second zombie showed up on the stairs. Moving up to their floor. There was at least one more already on their level, at the end of the hall.

  “I hate to ask something so obvious, but when you locked us in here, did you think to bring a gun?”

  His eyes told her what she already knew. Despite his hand in the Zombie Apocalypse, he seemed to hate the idea of using guns.

  “Do we have a radio, at least? Can we call in the guards?”

  “I, uh...”

  “You removed the radios, didn't you?” She was getting angry.

  “Well, I couldn't have you calling for help before I got a chance to talk to you, alone.”

  “Dang it. Now I have to spend my whole night in a tiny room with the one man...”

  He waited for her to finish her thought. When she didn't, he tried it himself. “The one man who can save humanity?”

  “I was going to say the one man who tried to have me killed, but then I realized there are a lot of men—and women—who wanted me dead, along with everyone else. Why is the NIS so evil?”

  Her Christian background searched for a good versus evil angle to things, though it couldn't reconcile Hayes. A man who helped design the plague, and seemed to be the only one working to fix it.

  “You'd be surprised, I think, if you met those people. The ones I know, at least. They're bureaucrats, politicians, soldiers. They get up and eat brea
kfast just like you. You couldn't pick them out of a crowd of average people if you tried. That's what makes them so dangerous.”

  “Us. You were supposed to say 'that's what makes us so dangerous,' right?”

  “You still think I'm working for them?”

  “I don't know who you're working for. This whole—” she waved her arms wildly, trying to signify both the video monitors and the world outside “—scenario you've created tonight. It's insane. Why not just invite me in the light of day and explain what you were doing? All of this—” she gestured with her arms again “—was just stupid and unnecessary. Frankly, it's what I would expect from someone working for a super-secret government agency.”

  “Sometimes I wish I could go back to the old ways. Not because it was evil or because I wanted to work on viruses, but because it was safe. There are probably medical teams working in one of the fortresses around the country, making the same discoveries I am. And they're doing it in the comfort of impenetrable walls. By comparison, I'm on the front lines of this disease, risking myself every minute I'm out here.”

  “But you're making these great discoveries. Even if your methods are unorthodox, and I'm not saying I agree with them, but even I can't deny this is a huge discovery.”

  That seemed to perk him up. “So you'll help me?”

  “When we get out, I still want to try to find Liam. Then he and I will decide what to do next. We're a team,” she said with finality.

  It's going to be a long night.

  3

  They spent another half hour studying the monitors, though they were only able to say definitively where two of the released zombies had gone. The woman in the lower level had gone missing.

  “I hate to bring this up. We have to get a warning to those guards before they come back in the building. If they unlock the doors, the zombies may jump on them and get free.”

  “They're trained to handle that. We just have to wait it out,” Hayes said matter-of-factly.

  Deep down, she wanted to listen to him. Just sit back and wait for sunrise, and let the guys with guns handle the trouble. But there was a whole refugee camp behind that thin blue line of guards. If the zombies got past them, it put everyone in danger, including—perhaps—Liam.