“And what will that tell us?”
“Who's behind all of this. Whoever made that virus obviously has access to advanced technology. Maybe there's some biotech firm that discovered the cure to Cancer or whatever, and they're sitting on that cure because it accidentally cured all other diseases. Maybe they wouldn't want to cure everything at once? Al said as much.”
He admired her spirit.
“Wow. I thought I was the one who cooked up conspiracies,” he said with a chuckle.
“I saw what you asked the computer,” she said while smiling.
The most important question was one he'd thought up in the moment. He wanted to know where Elsa's greatest enemy—his Grandma Rose—was hiding. Now that Elsa was dead, he wasn't going to assume everything would suddenly return to peaceful mode. The zombies were out there, getting stronger day after day. The Operation Renew convoy was still heading for St. Louis, with all the military units left from the East Coast along with millions of survivors. Elsa said she was in line to become president of the United States. That's why she wanted Grandma Rose out of the way. But he had to suspect she was more involved with the virus itself.
“Where's my Grandma?”
“Not that one,” she said with bright eyes and a smile.
“I asked it where your parents are hiding.”
“The answer was the same for both, wasn't it?”
“Pretty close. Both are in Colorado.”
“If they have Grandma, maybe it will help to be so far away from her. That way they can't make her operate the Quantum computer and tell them where we are. Or where it is. They'll never figure out where we went.”
He wasn't so sure. Drones hovered above the water, like they were lost. If Elsa was dead, maybe it was over.
“What do you think Al meant by non-linear time? Is that like time travel, or something?” he asked, while watching the water.
“I have no idea. Hans seemed to think this all began during the Spanish Flu in nineteen-whatever a hundred years ago. That seems to add up in a strange way. I guess we'll know when we find it.”
Colorado, here we come.
Even as he sat there thinking, the drones seemed to perk up. They all began going upriver, out of Cairo. He turned that way to see a gigantic cloud of dust envelope the shore up that way. Like a herd of cattle arriving at the watering hole.
“Liam, look. I saw that cloud on the way in.” Victoria pointed the way he faced. “Come on. We have to go.”
She took off up the bank—in the opposite direction. The drones weren't just going up the river; they were also coming across the waterway. Toward him.
No, toward their dead leader.
“I wish I could kill you over and over,” he said to her body.
Then, as with so many of his adventures, he ran. He couldn't help watch Victoria's fancy jeans as she scrambled up the rocky shore toward the treeline.
“Eyes forward, mister,” she laughed, somehow knowing he was already drawn that way.
He felt hope return. He had his running partner again.
Epilogue
Twenty-one days since the sirens.
Lana woke up with a wet cough. She'd washed ashore after falling in the river tied to her dead husband. The very thought of it made her shiver, no matter the heat of the new day.
The start of her journey was chaotic as she and Jerry floated between the parked barges or got sucked underneath them. The current carried them ever downriver, ensuring all she needed to do was hold her breath and keep kicking her feet. Soon the barges of Cairo fell far behind.
Eventually, her hands broke free of the zip ties. That's when the real fight began—against the current. She paddled until nightfall, unable to get out of the main channel. Once it got dark, and exhausted beyond words, she gripped some driftwood and let the river take her where it would. Sleep finally took her—until she ran aground.
“Liam,” she thought. “Please be OK.”
When she fell from the barge—out of his sight—she fought to keep her distance from “it” as the dead man flailed in the water with her. The thing that her husband had become—a zombie—had no traces left of the loving person he once was. The father of her only son.
Elsa had them together in that speedboat all the way from St. Louis, and that was enough of a hell for her. Jerry had been chained to the decking, but his vacant eyes and mud-stained and blackened skin were haunting echoes of his former life. She desperately wanted to know how it was possible to dig up a dead man and bring him back to half-life, but she had no interest in talking to Elsa. Several volunteer Polar Bears had helped her get back to her son in Forest Park, only to be greeted in an ambush by the crazy woman and her strike team.
Those four men and women were dead because of her.
Liam is going to die because of me too. I lost him.
“Cut yourself some slack,” she argued with herself, “keeping tabs on Liam was never easy, even before this sickness struck.” In fact, she and Jerry had spent the better part of the last six months arguing with him over his behavior. While Liam did fine in school, he often blew off homework so he could hang out with his friends. Computers. Tablets. Texting. Every distraction she could think of that drove a mother insane—he was into it. Everything but school work.
At least he wasn't into drugs.
That gave her some comfort, but online games were their own kind of addiction. The event that drove Liam out of the house involved gaming—he'd spent the night at a friend's house, but neglected to tell anyone where he'd gone. After a night of alternately crying in fear that he'd hurt himself and screaming in anger that he did it on purpose to hurt them, she and Jerry were ready for war. When Liam walked through the front door the next morning as if nothing had happened, she snapped.
They grounded him. Took away his laptop. Tried to make his life miserable. His response was that he'd go to the library and play his game. No big deal.
After much yelling and anger, she “woke up” at the back window of the house holding his laptop. She'd been thinking about throwing it through the glass. His apparent lack of concern over anything made punishing him impossible.
Getting him out of her sight was the only solution. She was ever thankful Jerry handled the logistics with Grandma Marty so that she could stay out of it. Her love was absolute, of course, but her anger flared up from depths previously unknown. She wanted him gone—just for a while.
And she'd felt guilty from the moment he'd walked out.
Day after day she argued with Jerry to let him come back. And each time he would respond that his time away would do everyone some good. Liam would realize what it was like to live without mom and dad to cater to his every need, and they would get some much-needed peace and quiet for the summer. They could recharge batteries for the start of school in the fall.
She wanted to go visit him at Grandmas, but Jerry insisted that would only diminish the punishment. He cut a deal with her that they would go see him on his birthday.
The sirens killed the world before that meeting could take place.
So much time wasted on arguing.
The disputes with Liam were trying enough, but she'd also argued too much with Jerry. Their disagreement over “visiting rights” with Liam had driven a wedge between them. The crevice widened after it became clear Liam and Grandma had gone out into the city. It all happened because she'd sent him away.
“I'm so sorry Jer. I wasted our last days together being mad at you. I should have spent my time telling you how much I loved you.”
Their relationship was more a brushfire of tension and small arguments than all out war, but maybe that would have been better. One big battle to get it all over and done with.
The weak consolation was that she'd forgiven him before he passed away from his infection. That was too late to matter, though.
And here at her rock, she was utterly alone. There was no sign of Cairo. Not even any barges. She wanted to believe Liam could have survived Elsa, but she was
completely in control. It was unlikely he did.
“I'm going to find out,” she said to the water.
She cautiously rose to her feet and took a few tentative steps through the shallow water near the bank. Something pulled hard at her right leg, making her hop in surprise.
“Oh no,” she said as she remembered what was attached to her.
The rope was longer than it seemed while they were swimming. About ten feet by the looks of it. Jerry's leg was tied on the other end, and his body had wedged into some larger rocks just out of the water. She figured wave action pushed him out.
“You have to do it, Lana.” The words gave her courage as she got close enough to touch the blade in his side. With the burly knife, she could put the zombie down for good.
She gripped it and her heart rumbled to life. Her breathing increased, and she lost herself in tunnel vision.
“He's already dead, Lana.”
The face was hidden—a fact for which she was glad—but it seemed to be sleeping on a big rock. His skin had cleaned up considerably in the water. The dirt and discoloration of the grave had been washed away. Dirty or not, it could flip over and bite her in two seconds. She steeled herself for the final act of their marriage.
“I love you, Jerry. Goodbye.”
She was pulling at the knife when the zombie spoke.
“I love you, too.”
###
E.E. Isherwood’s other books
Minus America – After an event sweeps from coast to coast, nearly everyone in mainland USA disappears. Only piles of clothes remain. Can the last Americans survive long enough to learn how it happened? Five books.
Impact (co-written with Mike Kraus) – A post-apocalyptic thriller about an asteroid slamming across the heartland of America. Six books.
End Days (co-written with Craig Martelle) – A post-apocalyptic adventure about a father and son on opposite ends of a continent ravaged by a failed science experiment. Four books.
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse – A teen boy must keep his great-grandma alive to find the cure to the zombie plague, but what if the only people immune are those over 100? Seven books.
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SINCE THE SIRENS BOOK 7
Zombie Escape
Since the Sirens
Book 7
© 2018 E.E. Isherwood. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Chapter 1. Wrong room
The bootheel region of Missouri. Day 20 since the sirens ended the world.
Liam and Victoria were on foot and on the run—again—from the horde of infected. The billowing cloud of dust over the tree line to the north indicated the size of the pursuit. His girlfriend's running shoes ahead of him only created tiny puffs, and he wondered how many zombie feet stomped across the Missouri farmland behind them.
“Liam, keep up!” Victoria cried out with concern.
He'd been falling behind for a while. The menacing cloud was one thing, but he'd also begun to absorb the fact his mother had been killed by a zombified version of his father when they both fell in the river. Even if he didn't see her get bitten, he felt in his heart she was dead. His usual optimism had been chased down and consumed, just as he was in danger of having done to him if he didn't keep moving.
“You won't lose me. Not again.” He tried to sound positive, though he felt the opposite.
“Darned tooten' you won't,” Victoria replied.
The landscape didn't help his mood. They were in the middle of a vast piece of farmland not far from where they emerged from the Mississippi River. The ground was perfectly flat, and he saw for miles in every direction. The light-colored soil was loose between the endless rows of the small, emerald green plants they trampled, like it had recently been plowed.
They'd been running at a fast jog for several miles, but Victoria wouldn't slow down. After swimming out of the river, he felt refreshed by the cool water, but it didn't take long before the heat and humidity of the afternoon made him hot and sticky. He'd hoped she would voluntarily rest, but he couldn't wait another minute.
“I think I need to stop,” he said with disappointment. For a moment he thought she might think less of him for taking a break, but she wasn't like that. Mostly, he knew it wasn't a good idea to stop when the zombie threat was so close.
She came to a halt and put her arms on her hips as she looked to the next tree line. After breathing several deep breaths while hunched over, she turned to face him. “We can stop, but only for a minute. They're still back there.”
She fell to her knees in between two rows of the mystery crop. He hunkered down in front of her. If he got on his belly he would be invisible to any onlooker. A great proposition if he had the energy to get back up. As it was, he thought he'd have trouble regaining his feet.
“Do you think they're really following us?” he asked.
Her face remained grim as she looked to the horizon from just above the plants. “The dust is getting closer. That's all I know for sure.”
He didn't really expect her to answer otherwise. Elsa Cantwell had said a horde of zombies had been walking from St. Louis, and they had a special ability which made them particularly useful to her. Unlike the other horde attacking Cairo from Chicago and Indianapolis, the ones from St. Louis were stuck on this side of the river, in Missouri. Elsa never revealed what would happen to the zombies once they arrived because he'd killed her thirty minutes ago.
“I'm glad she's dead,” he said between his heavy breathing. “She had to pay for killing my mom ... and dad.” He'd seen his father's grave back at Camp Hope. If Elsa had told the truth, she dug him out of the ground, reanimated him—or maybe he'd become a zombie underground already—and then forced him to attack his mom while he watched. It helped him immensely to think of Elsa as the monster that arranged those events, so her death didn't feel as sickening to him.
“Liam,” Victoria said softly while sliding closer to him. Close enough to put her hand on his arm. “I'm so sorry again about your mom and dad. That was totally awful what Elsa did to them. But look at me--”
He looked into her eyes.
“You did the right thing. You HAD to kill her. She was a murderer, for sure, and I think that was the least of her crimes. When she attacked us at the waterfront, she intended to kill us both. That's called self-defense and that's totally normal.”
She steadied her breath before she could continue. “In fact, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I don't think it matters at this point.” She giggled, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Did you know even your little old grandma killed someone in self-defense recently?”
She meant it as a wild revelation, but his face showed no surprise.
“You knew?” she asked.
“Not until I saw Elsa in the water with that wound to her eye,” he replied. “It looked the same as the crook Grandma shot while I was knocked out on the street that day. If things had happened differently, I might have never known,” he said while testing laughter. “How did you find out?”
“Oh, us girls talk, you know?” She smiled broadly, searching his face for understanding.
“I see how it is.” His heart was broken but he made a best effort to give her a cheerful grin. Deep down, he thought he could wallow in his despair and she wouldn't be critical of him, but they were in the middle of a field with zombies bearing down on them,
and that wasn't the time to play the victim.
“Do you see anywhere we can get safe?” he remarked as he lifted his head over the rows. A light green truss bridge was miles to the left of them. Twinkles of sunlight reflected off hundreds of cars parked just short of the bridge, and in the fields next to it. People abandoned them, it appeared, so they could walk into Illinois and try to find safety in Cairo. He thought back to his neighbor's story of people hiding in their cars at roadblocks and bottlenecks on the highways and was ready to suggest they turn that direction to find an open vehicle.
She looked the other way. “There.”
Her finger marked a structure in the distance.
Do they head to the lone farmhouse and move away from the zombies, or risk getting closer to the zombies but have all those cars to search?
He knew what she would say.
2
Before they got up from their hiding spot, he noticed a shirtless man running along a tree line far across the field closer to the bridge than the house. He was conspicuous because he was going toward the approaching dust cloud, rather than away—like a normal person.
“You coming?” She grabbed his arm and pulled him up but seemed to notice he was fixated on the running guy. “See something?”
The runner was unsettling, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Rather than frazzle her nerves further, he kept it to himself.
“Nothing but that gigantic cloud of death,” he said with dry sarcasm, and a smile.
“I know, right? It's huge. I can only imagine how many people are in it.”
He wondered about that. How many people could be in it? Elsa said the horde was pulled to Cairo using some kind of mind experiment being run on those people in the hull of the barge they'd just escaped. It was struck by the non-nuclear ICBM, killing all onboard and tossing him and Victoria from the deck as the explosion took place. If Elsa was telling the truth, they were the instruments that sucked in the zombies from cities to the north. He saw the hordes infiltrate Cairo with his own eyes. A number he couldn't quantify—maybe millions. A similar number could have come from St. Louis.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 176