Then, as she adjusted some equipment in the low light of the room, she addressed Victoria's concerns. “This will undoubtedly be the last one of these we do. I'm glad we could get you in, dear. But we did a lot of things here after the world went to crap. My boss ran a clinic up in Sikeston, though we had to come back here when things got bad. Started running it out of his shed,” she laughed anxiously. “But they found us. Everyone found us. Word spreads, you know?”
Victoria nodded to keep her talking but the woman's focus was on some medical equipment.
“First, we let them come, get their stuff done, and then leave. But everything has a cost, right? We realized pretty quick we wasn't gonna make it unless we got paid in usable currency. First it was food, but then nobody had food. Ironic, huh? We're on a farm surrounded by young corn stalks but had nothing to eat.”
Again, Victoria nodded and smiled, happy to be distracted from the music pounding the walls, which in turn hid the sound of the zombies outside.
“So we traded in ... services. We get the girls here and get them squared away, then they contract with us to work off the debt. It was all very hush hush at first, but soon everyone wanted to dispose of their 'little problems' when it was clear what it would mean going forward. Who can take care of a family when the dead are crashing through your living room?” She put a happy spin on her words, but she remained obviously nervous as she continued to fiddle with nobs and dials in the darkness.
“Things spun out of control, I'm afraid. We aren't professionals at this, mind you, so once word got around what we was doin' here, strange men showed up and began to advise us-then they sort of took over. More girls showed up and then more men showed up. Rich and powerful men. They all saw us for what we were. Even some of the cops stopped by ... to shake us down. We became, how should I say this? We became a place where goods and services traded hands enough to run an entire town. At least for a while.”
Margaret looked directly at her. “And you're the last one, sweetie. Lucky for you there won't be any need to work this off. I'm doing one on the house for ya. Call it karma. It's going to be harder to run for a little while, but long term your odds will be better with jus' you and your husband. It's what they all say.”
Victoria appreciated the framework of her explanation. Some kind of business arrangement had been struck. A relationship that included a dance club, apparently. And lots of clients, even now, at the end. But she'd been talking in riddles as to what was expected of her, in this room.
“So, what do you think?” Margaret appeared sympathetic for the first time.
“I'm, uh, glad you want to help my husband and me-”
Victoria jumped.
At that moment hands pounded on the exterior wall. They rattled one side of the room while music shook the other.
Her heart rate was out of control.
“B-but you have it all wrong about why I'm here, I think. We came from Cairo. There was a big fight between an endless wave of zombies and the whole town was destroyed. We got away and saw your house as a place to hide until the horde passes.”
Margaret did a double take. “You aren't pregnant?”
“No, I, uh. No!” It came together with stunning speed. Girls arrived here, desperate to erase their “little problems” as Margaret called them. But they had to pay off their debt, and men came to trade services. In a world without medical facilities and support staff, having a baby would scare a lot of women and young girls to seek this place-no matter the payment. It would become a well-traveled destination from far and wide. Margaret and her boss would be rich in a world bereft of hope.
“Well then,” Margaret sighed. “I guess you found as good a place as any to die.”
3
Victoria studied Russ for the first time. He was a younger teen, even younger than Liam. She noticed he was missing one of his top teeth and had a black eye, like he'd been in a fight. Long blonde hair drooped from under his hat as if he wanted to hide that eye. As she thought it over, Russ had tried to keep himself faced away from Victoria since the moment they met. When he noticed her checking him out, his head drooped so the brim of his hat blocked her view.
She didn't see any hope in talking to the shy kid, so she turned to Margaret. “Can I go? I need to find my husband.”
“Hmm. I'm sorry about that. I guess you were telling the truth. I believed you when you said you weren't recruiting soldiers to join the militias, but I assumed he was here to dump you off and collect payment. Lots of men hunt down desperate girls. Some make 'em desperate, if you catch my meaning. Then they bring 'em here and the shakedown crew pays 'em to go get more.”
“Wait. What? People get paid for bringing girls here? That's horrible.”
Margaret ignored the banging on the walls. “Sometimes things happen faster than you can control 'em. We never intended for all this to happen. It just did. We stayed alive as long as we could. Not proud of what we done, but in a strange way we all took care of each other. Now, all those bad men with guns will help us survive this.” She pointed to the back wall where the zombies continued to pound.
Victoria was tempted to go off on the woman's insanity, but there was now too much noise to speak intelligently.
“Might as well get a drink!” Margaret shouted as she waved to Russ to get his attention. She then pointed to the door of the dance hall and he opened it for her. Victoria felt as much as heard the blast of dance music, but sunlight also reflected through the opening.
“Oh, shit!” Margaret screamed. “Shut it!”
Gunfire erupted in the dance room. One of the tall garage doors had sagged in under the weight of the zombies and the revelers freaked as the stink and chaos leaked into their safe space.
Russ slammed the door.
But we can save them.
She didn't know how she felt about not helping any of the people on the other side, including girls she knew had to be innocent victims, but any chance of helping was shelved by Margaret. She stood in front of the door with her shotgun at the ready. Someone was already on the other side banging to be let inside.
“I know what you're thinking: why not help some of them people?” Margaret shouted as she shook her head. “They ain't got a chance. If we let them through, those things might get in, too. I ain't taking that chance with Russ here.”
Victoria held up her hands in mock surrender.
A woman's scream pierced the air just as the music shut off and for a few moments the whole outbuilding seemed to take a deep breath. Even the banging on the back wall subsided as if the zombies knew the front door had been breached. In that lull, Victoria heard footsteps on the roof above the little room.
“They're going to ride it out up top,” Margaret said in a normal voice.
Seconds later, the screams and shouting and gunfire came back louder than before.
Victoria's stammering heart needed a distraction, so she looked around for something to block the door. Liam would want her to always be thinking about survival tactics. A small medical table stood by a chair bolted to the cement floor.
The single bulb above them flickered, causing them all to gaze at it. She broke the moment by motioning to the table.
“Help me move it over there,” she said while pointing to the door.
Margaret set down her gun and helped her get it done. They found a metal filing cabinet that was the perfect size to wedge between the table and the back wall, so the door could not swing inward at all.
But they were far from safe because a gunshot tore through the metal next to the door. A few more followed as they all got on the floor in the secret room. She held her breath for sixty seconds, expecting more, but she inhaled again before any additional holes appeared.
“I think we're-”
A long burst of gunfire chugged in the other room. The bullets came in through the inner wall and clanged against medical equipment or snapped through the back wall and out into the horde, letting in more light.
“Stay down!”
Victoria yelled to her two captors.
More guns opened up as if it was a last stand of some sort. Bullets flew wild and perforated the back wall from end to end. All she could do was hug the floor and close her eyes.
The rally didn't last long. After about thirty seconds, the many became few, then none. When it was done, she opened her eyes and looked in horror as blood dripped through many of the holes on the dance floor side. Someone had unleashed hell on the zombies inside the room.
Russ screamed for help, but he wasn't the one who was hurt. During the volley he'd slid himself onto his mom's chest as if he was protecting her from the bullets, but the look of despair on his face indicated that he'd failed.
“Oh God,” Victoria let slip out.
At least one of the bullets found a mark down near the floor because the woman's side had burst open.
She surveyed the medical equipment. “Is there anything we can use here? Bandages? Antiseptic? Alcohol, even?”
Margaret's face was pale as she shook her head no.
The boy slid back to look at his mother. There was no longer any reason to protect her from the bullets because all the people in the next room seemed to be dead.
Victoria crouched as she moved around the room looking for anything that would help with the wound, but the best she found was a heating plate with a pot of cold water on it. A few medical instruments stuck out of the container.
“This is all you have?” Victoria yelled in disbelief.
Margaret said something, but only Russ heard her.
“What did she say?” she asked him.
“None of your damned business.” Russ looked at her defiantly for a moment but threw his head down again. Victoria noticed his gun was carelessly placed on the floor next to his mom.
“We have to go out and get help.” She got up and walked directly to the shotgun and picked it up. She checked the chamber to ensure there were rounds in the gun, pleased there were.
“I'm sorry for doing this, but I'm getting out of here.” She felt better being in charge, but soon regretted taking the gun. Margaret was bleeding out and her son was begging her not to die. Even if by some miracle she could get out of the building and find help, the woman was going to die.
Well, poop.
She could curse the woman for what she'd done with her farm, including tossing Liam out the front door and leading her into the hidden room, but there was no denying she'd kept her son alive in the breakdown of civilization.
Maybe it was the only way?
No, I'd never allow this.
In her heart she knew that was true but admitted she couldn't possibly understand how it all happened to this family. Margaret said they started out small and it got out of control because of bad men who preyed on and made victims of them all.
Never.
Unable to do anything but stare at the dying woman and listen to the banging and scraping on all the walls around her, she leaned back against the table in front of the door. The gunfire had stopped. Only the moans remained.
She could almost talk at a normal level.
“I'm sorry about your mom.”
4
Russ scrambled around the floor, looking for something. Victoria was bemused until they both saw the object of his search at the same moment. Fortunately, Margaret's gun was up against the table where she was already leaning. Russ's eyes burned with tears and anger, but he said nothing to confirm he'd been looking for the gun.
The gentle bumps from people on the roof were heard in between the noises of the horde outside and the intruders in the next room. They'd quieted down, relatively speaking, because there were no more easy pickin's. At least, that's how she imagined it. Somehow the zombies outside knew the action was on the roof, not inside. With any luck, she'd be forgotten in the tiny room. But for how long? Was she destined to spend the rest of her life there? The questions burned at her while she kept her eye on Russ.
“She's gone,” the boy said while choking up.
She knelt down to pat the guy on the back.
“Get off me,” he hissed. “She tried to protect you. Help you. I don't know who you are, but I hate you.” He looked at the door, confirming it was closed. “I want you to get out of here,” he added weakly. “Like your stupid husband.”
Her hackles rose up to the challenge, but she had to take comfort in having control of the guns. She could easily throw his mom's misdeeds in his face or explain all her own struggles that made her end up under his mom's “protection,” but none of that mattered. The woman was a corpse on the floor, and they were alive. It could have been any of them, or all of them. The apocalypse was completely random.
It struck her why his mom spoke in such indirect sentences. She tried to shield her son from the worst of what went on at their home.
“I know you hate me. I'm really really sorry about your mom. I never meant any of this to happen when we walked up to your front door today. I'm-” she tried to think of the least controversial thing she could say, “-trying to get back to my own parents in Colorado.”
“I hope they're dead,” he snapped.
I should have seen that coming.
“Look. We have to work together to survive. That's the way it is now. Working together with people you dislike. Not that I dislike you.” She didn't. There was a deep feeling of sadness for him, though.
“Well I hate you. My mom protected whores like you and left me to get beat up and pushed around. Now look at her!”
Victoria reconsidered if Margaret sheltered him a little too much. What message would she have told him for girls brought here against their will? How would she describe the men? Some unsavory characters had to be coming in and out of his house for the past several weeks. Men devoid of morals, intent to capitalize on the desperate women and girls who arrived here before them. It was his mom that made it all happen, so he probably had reason to be angry.
“Fine. Hate me. But we still have to work together to get out of here.”
“We're dead,” he yelled and pointed at Margaret's body. “My mom died. I'm as good as dead now, too.”
“No, we'll make it. Trust me.”
He spit at her legs for an answer.
She took a deep breath.
Three weeks ago, the thought of this place would have sent her into a panic attack. Men and women being used like currency was abhorrent. Two weeks ago, after seeing the worst of mankind and the zombies chasing them, finding a place like this would have been a huge embarrassment to her sensibilities, but nothing more. Today, in week three, it was what it was. Just one more speedbump in her survival.
I'm not dying in an abortion clinic.
She held both shotguns and moved away from Russ. Though the room was small, she hoped there was something she could use either for defense against the zombies, or offense against them so she could get back to the farm.
Among filing cabinets and dusty boxes toward one end she found a small brown refrigerator like college students use in their dorm rooms. She immediately thought of her room back at Washington University and her pleasant time with Liam back there.
Inwardly, she glowed, but at that moment the only thing she wanted to see in that refrigerator was ice cold water. She pulled the handle to get a look inside and was disappointed. There were rows of uniform-looking containers, but they weren't the beverages she sought.
She pulled out a small glass bottle with a funny-looking stopper on top. She recognized it immediately for what it was. A medical vial used for injecting the contents into people.
Russ remained by his mom, so Victoria walked the vial back to the light. Her brief tenure in the medical internship had given her ample access to all kinds of medicines, dispensers, bottles, and needles, but this one had her confused. Rather than give the name and description of the contents as required, it simply gave the dosage instructions.
“Administer 5cc per procedure.”
It also had an ominous black plastic seal around the top which had to be to
rn before the bottle could be opened. It said “Property of FEMA. We stay healthy, together.”
“Holy cow plop,” she said to herself. Russ looked up, though his face remained passive.
Victoria ran back to the little fridge and pulled out the rest of the bottles. After a quick count she thought to look for a trash can. If the bottles were what she thought, the plastic caps and empty bottles had to be close by. It wasn't like trash service had been working.
When she found the can-with a bullet hole on each side, like a shot had passed right through it-she dumped it on the floor. A dozen or so bottles rolled around noisily.
“Are you trying to kill us,” Russ whispered, scared.
Victoria did some mental math. At least ten of the bottles were here, and the dosage said 5cc-a pretty significant amount for an injection. The bottles were 30ml each, meaning each one was good for about six doses. If the trash represented all of them, there had been approximately sixty girls injected with whatever was inside the containers.
In her scramble to account for the bottles and count them, she'd left the guns untended.
Russ got up and already had one in his hands.
“Crap. Crap. Crap.” Victoria set down the bottles and raised her arms in surrender again.
5
“Tell me right now what you are doing. Why are you counting like that?” Russ held his mom's shotgun-the dangerous-looking one.
Victoria lowered her arms. “Are we good?”
Russ nodded. “Just tell me.”
She let her shoulders hunch as she propped herself on her knees next to the bottles. “I've seen these before. These black-topped vials are used for injecting patients. You stick the needle into this top screen and you get a sterile contact with the contents. This particular one says the doctor needs 5 cubic centimeters of fluid for this FEMA-controlled agent. I had this stuff injected in me before the zombies came. I remember because of this black band. I saw my nurse use her fingernails to dig into the plastic and rip it off. She seemed more bothered than anything. But that stuck with me.”
She sighed.
“And later I found out that I was injected with a walking-version of the zombie plague. One that spreads to others but doesn't infect me. Funny, huh? Funny that the same thing was given to all the girls who passed through here, probably thinking they were getting some kind of immunity. It all depends on what FEMA told your mom.”
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 182