“We saw it hissing in the bushes when we came up here,” she replied with happiness. In the next instant she remembered what else she'd seen behind the house and her mood darkened.
“It didn't go off? Wow. That's amazing. I guess they aren't as dangerous as we assumed. We thought it would blow up and we could walk across to you.”
Like magic, he helped restore her mood.
“Aww, you were coming for me?” she said with affection.
“Of course. What did you think this was about?”
“So, you blew up the whole place just to get me back?” She was happy on one level, but it was tempered by the recognition so many innocent people had died along the way.
“Sabella blew it up to get her daughter back. I'd blow up the world to get you--” he started to say.
An orange ball of fire erupted on the eastern horizon, right over Cairo. The event started to the north and moved south in a long line, like a string of firecrackers. For a few moments it was one large, orange dome, but then it fizzled out. As the flame died, a shockwave blew over them and something like the rumble of thunder went on for many seconds.
She was awestruck by the event until a new sound became evident on the breeze.
“Do you hear sirens?” Liam asked with a shaky voice.
4
Sabella popped her head back out. “Was that thunder? Are those tornado sirens?”
Victoria and Liam still faced east. The orange glow was gone, but a black plume of smoke had replaced it.
“Holy shit,” Sabella said with awe. “Is Cairo on fire?”
They listened as the wail drifted in and out on the breeze. The dust from the shuffling feet of the horde was a distraction, and they couldn't see Cairo directly because it was so far away, but it was safe to say the sounds came from that direction.
“What did you see?” Sabella continued.
“I'm not sure,” Victoria replied. “It was like a fireball moving through the sky. Must be something big happening in the town.”
“The Air Force,” Liam added. “They did something like this to a camp called Elk Meadow and then to my subdivision, but it looks like they've gotten more efficient about it. That fireball was big enough to burn up all the zombies we saw back in Cairo.”
“That's impossible,” Victoria said with reverence.
“No, just--”
“Improbable,” she interjected before he could finish Grandma Marty's famous saying.
They shared a quick smile.
Another sound rumbled from closer to home.
“Someone's alive,” Liam shouted.
They looked at each other, then bounded up the roof to the peak.
She arrived a step after him and oriented on the disturbance.
“Engines!” he said.
Several motorcycles revved to life, along with a couple of cars. They had been parked at the edge of the field on the far side of the trees. Prior to the explosion, the leaves hid the second parking area, so it couldn't be seen from the house. Now, after the gasoline bomb scoured away all the leaves, it was easy to see fifteen or twenty vehicles parked back there.
As they knelt on the hot surface of the shingles, the little caravan took off to the northwest. The horde was thick in that direction, but not nearly as solid as the east. She thought they might have a chance.
“Look.” Liam pointed in the same direction, but a little to the north. She found his mark and looked out as far as she could.
“Is that a train?” she asked.
“No, those are definitely trucks.”
A line of tractor trailers followed a powerful-looking black vehicle that was a cross between an eighteen-wheeler, a bulldozer, and a steam locomotive. It didn't go very fast, but it separated the crowd like a zipper. The cargo haulers followed close behind so that it looked a lot like a train. The procession went on for miles until she couldn't see it through the trees far to the north.
While they observed what they could, Sabella ran up the slope to be with them. Her interest was in the motorcycles.
“More are alive? Is my baby over there?”
The pickup truck in the lead plowed into the infected standing on the edge of the blast zone. A number of people huddled in the back bed. Another truck followed, and a dozen or so motorcycles chased the two leaders before the zombies could close back in. It was a miniature version of the giant parade up on the main road.
“How close is that road,” Liam asked Sabella.
“How would I know?”
“Well, um, you were here before this horde arrived. I thought ... ”
“I was brought here against my will. I was blindfolded and in a lot of pain.” Her voice trailed off as she continued to watch the survivors depart. Finally, seemingly spent, she sat heavily onto the peak of the roof. “I've lost my baby girl.”
Victoria didn't know what to say and when Sabella began to weep she was even less sure. If her daughter was lost, would she be as composed?
The motorcade was deep into the crowd when another pair of motorcycles cranked over. The smoke was heavy for a few moments and only cleared up when they were driving away. Both were driven by men, and each had a woman behind them.
“My God, that's her. That's Elise.”
Sabella stood up and seemed to inhale deeply. “Elise!”
Victoria swore she saw the girl turn her head, but before she could say for sure, the motorcycles joined the great trails of dust kicked up by the first group of vehicles. All of it added to the debris already aloft from the zombies.
Soon, Sabella only had the sound of the bikes to comfort her.
She screamed for her daughter several more times, but each was less forceful.
When the wind shifted again, she made out the little caravan as it went directly for the flow of big rigs.
“They are heading toward the truck convoy, I guess,” she said to Sabella. “Maybe they'll find some help. Maybe she'll be alright.”
Victoria watched for her to sit back down and descend into tears, but she surprised her by running down the roof to the entry for the window. She assumed she wanted to comfort her other two daughters.
“You saved them, huh?” she said to Liam when they were alone.
“You would have done the same. This place was some kind of brothel and, uh, a clinic.”
“I know. Margaret and the fat guy were abortionists. But the girls who came here never got to leave. They used them.”
“The reverend I killed said he harmed women, here. He was in his room all alone when I arrived, but it looked like it had been well-used. Fat man, too. They were regulars, though I think he was also the husband of that woman downstairs.”
“Ugh, that makes him Russ's father.”
“Step-father, actually,” Russ replied.
They'd been talking loud enough to be heard from the window lower on the roof, and Russ stuck his head out to talk with them.
“Roger wasn't my real dad, thank God. He had something wrong with him, I think, because he was responsible for all that went on here. An evil that I never noticed before the zombies. I saw him, by the way, when we came upstairs. He's in that first room.”
“That fat man?” Victoria blurted out.
Russ nodded.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly.
“It's okay. It's just so hard to believe he's dead, you know? I've known him since I was a little boy, but he was always kind of standoff-ish? Like he didn't want to be hassled with me. I rarely saw him because he worked so much in his clinic. That was fine with me, but the things I've seen him do the past few weeks. How long has he been a grade-A butt muncher?”
Though Margaret appeared keen to take care of a baby for her, she didn't seem to revel in it. It was too late to ask her what she thought of her also-late husband, but Russ asked his mom about a man named Roger when they all left the house. She didn't run up there to save him. Was he the same man calling for Margaret in those first confusing minutes? She recalled how his voice made her
cringe.
“Maybe I knew. Always knew, I mean. When we came here, and I saw him involved with the people coming in and going out, I knew. Young girls came here crying, and they just sort of stuck around. Sometimes they'd ask me to help them, but I didn't know how. It kind of seemed like a game-first they said the world ended, then the zombies came, then all these pretty girls ... ”
He seemed embarrassed at the realization. “What I can't figure out is why my mom did it. She wasn't an evil person. I never heard her be mean to anyone.”
“Well I bet-” Liam started before she shushed him. He flashed a bemused look but didn't argue.
“Your mom took care of you. Kept you alive. That's all that matters. If she could have done it any other way, she would have. I believe that after having met her. I really do.”
Privately, she knew there were no good guys in the running of a brothel-dance hall-abortion parlor. Margaret could have left at anytime and taken her son with her, but she chose not to. If she left her dirtbag husband in the end, maybe that was a bit of good, but it was far too late to do much for the girls stuck out in the shed.
5
“This is your house, right?” Liam asked.
Russ seemed embarrassed but nodded yes.
“I don't suppose you have any supplies?” Liam continued. “We should stock up while the zombies are distracted. They seem to be focused on everything but this house right now.”
“Lots. Mom had me do inventory all the time ... ” Russ stopped for a second as if making a realization. “Which kept me down in the basement a lot. There's tons down there, but some things are in the kitchen pantry, too.”
“I'm sorry about your mother,” Liam replied in a grave voice. “My mom just died, too. Out there.” He pointed toward the black cloud over Cairo.
Victoria decided to give the two some space while they spoke of loss. Her parents were alive and well in Colorado, as far as she knew, and she was never going to let go of that. Hearing them talk about such things wasn't good for maintaining that belief.
She stood tall and made herself busy watching vehicles.
Far to the north, the fleeing motorcycles and trucks continued to bounce across the dusty field and were mostly out of the dense part of the horde. They approached the tractor-trailers on the road like a group of robbers on horseback matching the speed of the money train in the Wild West. At the last moment, they seemed to merge with the flow of traffic and head in the same direction.
“Hey Russ. I need you for a second.” Sabella called out from the hallway.
Victoria glanced back. Liam crouched at the window still talking with Russ. The blonde-haired boy smiled at her when their eyes met. That small act made her feel good because he didn't seem to hate her, anymore.
“Hey guys,” Russ said, “I'll be right back after I see what she wants.”
“Yeah, sure,” Liam said with a bit of indifference.
She spoke once it was clear Russ had gone out of the room. “He's not all bad, and he almost killed himself in that shed. I think he's ashamed of what he saw.”
“Well, good.” Liam said it with confidence but corrected himself almost immediately. “I mean. Not good. I'm just not happy with him or his family right now, but I'll get over it.”
“You will,” she replied. “You have a good heart.”
“It's been tested,” he said with the sound of exhaustion.
He stood up next to her and they both watched things unfold in the fields.
“Would you like a drink of water?” she asked in a cheerful way.
“Hell yeah. I'm dying of thirst.” He looked her up and down, then glanced all around where they stood. She showed him her empty hands before he finally caught on. “You don't have water, do you?”
She grinned at him.
“You did that to me back at the Arch. You'd think I'd catch on.”
Victoria took his hand and noticed his skin felt hot. They'd been on the move since they met up on that barge in Cairo earlier in the day and hadn't touched any drinking water since then.
The sirens continued to call from the town, and she observed something else in that direction. “Liam. Look.” She pointed to the zombies. “They're facing the same way.”
Indeed, they all appeared to be facing the river.
“Let's look over the roof,” she said with excitement.
She trotted up the steep roof until it was possible to see the horde in the fields to the west, beyond the outbuilding. The zombies didn't line up with military order, but they had some uniformity because their faces were all visible. None were turned around or sideways as she saw them from her perspective. They all seemed to orient their bodies on her, but she took comfort that those on the sides of the farmhouse were also facing east and not at her.
They were also shuffling their feet.
“They, uh, are moving as a group again,” Liam said in a whisper.
They spent a few minutes observing how the infected walked like someone was ringing the dinner triangle in Cairo. There was still a bit of a clearing around the farmhouse from where the fire raged, but it was getting smaller as the zombies moved from west to east.
“Holy Sheefu,” Victoria exclaimed as she pointed to the parking lot. “What are they doing?”
Sabella's reddish-brown hair swished from side to side as she ran toward the shed. Russ trailed just behind her, trying to keep up. The boy looked over his shoulder once to wave to her and Liam, but then continued beyond the shed. In moments, they were lost from sight.
“And where are her daughters?” she replied.
“She's getting a car,” Liam said in an even voice. “Then she's going to take them with her.”
“Let's get downstairs,” she suggested. It seemed like a pretty good idea.
They slid down the roof as a car engine started up. When they got inside and back to the first floor she was surprised to see the two girls standing at the back windows, watching their mother. She expected a car to spin across the rocks like in a movie, but the car engine faded, rather than approach the house.
The two girls held each other and cried. The oldest one turned to her. “She's gone after Elise with that boy. Mom said to wait here.”
Liam surprised her by kneeling down in front of the little one. “Susan, your mom knows what she's doing. You don't have to be scared.”
He looked back up at her and smiled.
She then noticed the other girl. “Hi!” she said in a friendly voice. “I'm Victoria. Pleased to meet you.” She held out her hand to shake.
“Hiya,” she said with a bit of uncertainty. “I'm Leah. I guess I'm glad to meet you, too.”
“Your mom is pretty brave,” she said to both girls.
“Too brave,” Leah responded.
“Don't say that,” Susan chided her. “Mommy will bring back Leezy.”
Leah huffed but let it go.
She almost let slip that it was suicide to go out there unarmed, but the thought made her realize she'd lost track of her shotgun. She remembered setting it down on the edge of the roof when she climbed out the upper floor window, but it wasn't there when she came back in or she would have brought it downstairs with her.
“Your mom took my gun?” she asked.
“Yeah, she took a gun, some ammo, and bottles of water,” Leah said.
“Ammo?” Liam snapped back. “Where is that?”
“Water?” Victoria added. “Is there more?”
Leah pointed to the kitchen pantry, which had to be the one Russ mentioned earlier. The little closet was a nook in the wall with dust-covered contents on several deep shelves. At one time there was a big lock to hold the door shut, but it had been left open. When Liam looked in, he whistled in awe.
She tried to whistle, too, but her lips were too parched.
The cupboard was stuffed front to back with canned goods, water bottles, flashlights, batteries, cooking oil, flour bags, rice sacks, and big cardboard boxes labeled with ammo calibers on the side. There wa
s a small box with six or seven can openers, just for good measure.
Victoria playfully pushed Liam aside and pulled out one of the many plastic water bottles. She nearly bit the cap off and chugged the contents. Half of it went down her shirt but she didn't care in the least.
“Wow, drink much?” Liam said sarcastically.
She finished off the bottle and glanced at him with mild embarrassment. “Sorry about that. Once I made that joke about water, I couldn't stop thinking about it.”
He opened his own bottle and downed it with similar results.
“Is this the best water you've ever had?” she gushed.
Liam tossed down his empty and yanked out a second. She followed his lead and they both consumed them with noisy gulps and more spilled product.
“They need more manners,” Susan said as if telling on them. “Pee-eww,” she added.
Victoria halted for a second and glanced at Liam's filthy face and clothing. The front of his shirt had been soaked in blood and some kind of black goo, but it had dried for the most part. Now, as the water from the bottle drizzled down his neck, it reactivated that mess. Some of it dripped onto the floor of the kitchen and it smelled terrible.
She looked at her own feet, glad that she wasn't covered in the same stuff. Both of them slowed their drinking so it wouldn't spill as much.
“Where did this come from?” Leah wondered.
Victoria was glad to talk about anything but her bad manners. “Margaret said they started out accepting food as payment, but that later on no one had food to trade. It's what started the whole thing with gambling, prostitution, and worse.”
“They made a killing,” Liam replied as he set his half-empty bottle on the counter. “We can eat like kings.”
She was thinking things through when Liam sprang to action. He spoke to the girls, who had been watching them drink. “Get pillow cases, sheets, anything to put this food in. We'll carry it upstairs to the roof. I'll grab this water.” He pointed to the pile of government-issued water bottles on the floor of the pantry.
While everyone was running around searching, she noticed a small, yellow radio poking from one of the shelves. It was the kind of weather radio her mom and dad used when they planned to spend the day in the mountains of Colorado. Dad liked to get his weather “raw” as he would say, direct from NOAA, rather than one of the talking heads on the television.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 187