I'm more helpless than a child.
Three beats and a pause.
The town of Cairo had been built on a three-mile-long peninsula at the intersection of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. An earthen levee formed a protective barrier around the flood-prone municipality, and Chloe had stopped at the “wedding ring” area of levee that was supposed to block off the rest of the thin finger of land to the south.
The blue sky and puffy white clouds were breathtaking in their contrast to the earthly terror below them. It looked like Hell had bubbled up from underneath the fields and things that had once been men and women lay in bloody piles for a solid square mile. Bullets and shells had devastated the bodies of the zombies and turned the soil red out there, but they weren't the losers of the battle. Humvees and other military hardware littered the landscape where they got stuck in the mud or were overrun by superior numbers. A mile-long canal had hastily been cut between the two rivers and was supposed to be the final line of defense in front of the town, but dead bodies filled it up and the zombies used them as bridges across.
Chloe had driven them out of the zombie-filled streets and getting to the top of the levee seemed like an escape, but there were far more zombies outside of town. They lined up all the way to the distant highway, as if waiting to get into a rock concert.
“I've failed you,” the woman said to Marty while making a pointed effort to keep her tears and sadness hidden.
Any other time she would comfort Chloe and tell her she was wrong, but Marty was more concerned with her uncooperative heart.
Three beats and a pause.
And more pause.
The pause just wouldn't stop.
Oh no.
4
“Marty, wake up.”
“Al?” she replied. Over the past three weeks her dead husband had talked to her in visions. It wasn't really her husband but was some kind of computer avatar using his appearance. She didn't completely trust anyone who faked being the love of her life, but he hadn't given her any reason to distrust him, either.
“Liam and Victoria are across the river in Missouri. You need to be with them. They need you.”
“Your world is so confusing,” she mumbled. “Computers. Other universes. I'm not built for it.”
“Marty, you are,” Al's voice told her. “I can't help you anymore. You'll have a new guide soon to get you near the mainframe. But the most important thing is that you go there with Liam and Victoria because you three are the key to unlocking it.”
“Unlock,” Marty echoed.
“Right,” Al continued in a much fainter voice. “If you fail, or one of you dies, another triad will be selected to open it. I'd prefer if it was you three, Marty. Not everyone with the means to get here has such a good heart.”
“It will be us,” she droned.
“Get back to Liam. Help Victoria. Work as a team. Right now, you have to get into the water. A storm is coming.”
“Storm coming, friends into the water,” she paraphrased.
Her heart was working again, so that threat had passed, but she felt out of sorts. Normally, when talking to Al, she knew she was with him, but this time it felt like he'd come to her. Maybe that was why her ticker acted up? Marty kept her eyes closed, still not sure if she was living or dying.
“Miss, are you okay?” a male voice called to her.
Someone gently tapped her left arm and she opened her eyes to find herself back inside the cramped truck.
“I'm fine,” she said. “I must have dozed off.” She made the sign of the cross out of habit. Talking to Al felt a bit like chatting with the divine, even if she wasn't certain of the origins of the voice.
“You picked a hell of a time to sleep,” Mark replied.
“We have to do something,” Chloe sniffled, but sounded confident again. “Look up there.”
Marty craned her neck to look into the sky through the front windshield. She tried to avoid looking down on the large number of zombies trudging over the great battlefield, but soon spied motion in the air above the interstate near the horizon.
Three large planes seemed to hang in the sky because they moved so slow. Four giant propellers drove each one and the fat fuselages made her think of pregnant women because they had such girth.
“Anyone know what they are?” Chloe asked.
No one answered as the planes got closer and seemed to get lower to the ground. They flew side-by-side, but kept enough space between each other, so they were far enough apart to cover the mile-wide swath of battlefield between the interstate and the levee north of Cairo.
“Are they bombers?” Mark asked. The two men were crammed into the cab and watched with rapt attention toward the planes. However, everyone jumped when a zombie slammed a fist against Chloe's driver's-side window.
“Good god!” Chloe screamed. “They're here.”
Zombies had come up both sides of the levee and the first one in line had dozens more behind it. Marty saw the broken woman outside the smeared glass and felt sorry for her. The hair was caked in mud and blood, but it was once long, luxurious blonde hair on a vibrant young woman in a tank top. She turned to look out her own window and saw more people that had been changed into the walking horrors that now filled the fields and town of Cairo. Dressed like normal folks, but with dead eyes and bloody features.
“Lord, help us,” she let slip.
“Oh, no,” Chloe replied. “Those planes aren't dropping bombs. Look at them.”
Despite the banging on the glass, they all looked out the front window. The planes now had fluffy trails of white behind them. From miles away, they looked like tiny thunderstorms dropping rain on the fields, and the line of mist grew in length and spread to the sides as the planes cruised straight toward the levee.
Chloe revved the engine, but hesitated.
“I don't want to be in that, but where should I go?” The mist hovered above the ground but continued to spread in all directions like syrup spreading over a flapjack. The white spray poured out of the planes as they continued their flight paths right toward Cairo.
And the truck.
Chloe turned all around, looking out the windows. To the north, there was nothing but farm fields with dead and shambling zombies in a mile-wide flatland that extended miles toward the interstate. The town behind them was also overrun with zombies. Going back was not an option.
“The river?” Mark offered.
“Marty said something about friends in the water,” Chloe replied. “That's where we need to go.”
“Has anyone noticed the other planes?” Craig asked. He'd been quiet since he'd come in through the back window. Marty had almost forgotten about him.
He pointed high in the sky behind the first row of overgrown crop dusters.
“We don't have time to stick around,” Chloe said with her old command voice. She revved the engine again and stomped on the gas. The tires slid on the gravel surface at the top of the levee and rocks pinged off the wheel wells.
A couple bodies also rattled the front bumper.
“Where are you going?” Mark asked.
Since the truck was driving east, Marty had to lean forward and look to the left to see the aircraft. The pregnant planes kept getting more massive as they approached. Two of them were going to cross the levee behind them, but the last one approached on a line that would drop its load directly on top of them.
“Hang on!” Chloe yelled as she braced herself against the steering wheel.
Marty sat back in her seat just as the truck smashed into a pair of zombies. A red mash of body parts splashed over the front of the hood and something bounced off the windshield leaving yet another red blotch there. It was a miracle the glass didn't crack where it hit.
The plane was almost directly overhead.
“We're going to go off the levee close to the river,” Chloe pointed forward. “Up ahead. Mark. Craig. You two will be responsible for getting Marty safely out of the truck.”
Another b
ody hit the front of the truck and everyone inside rose a bit as the truck bounced. When it touched the ground again, Chloe struggled to keep it straight.
“Oh, shit,” she said after she had it in line again. “I almost lost it.”
She leaned near the wheel and looked at Marty. “We're going to crash into the water I'm sorry to say. But I think we want to be far away from these zombies.”
“I trust you, dear,” Marty replied in a pleasant voice.
“I'll try to make it painless,” Chloe said as she leaned back in her seat and focused again on driving. They were only a few seconds from the end of the northern part of the levee. The barrier made a sharp turn to the south, so it could protect the eastern edge of the town of Cairo, but they weren't going that way.
The roar of the plane came with a sense of space closing around her. Once more, she wished for a rosary.
“Don't worry about me,” Marty said to be cheerful, “I've been swimming in a river just a few weeks ago with my great-grandson. I'll be fine.”
Chloe gave her a look that conveyed uncertainty. She was used to it. No one thinks a 104-year-old woman is capable of much of anything. Not that she blamed them. In fact, most of her life she thought the same thing.
But she'd done a bit of growing in the last few weeks.
She watched the edge of the levee approach and appreciated that they were seconds ahead of the white mist falling from the plane. Her last thought before they went over was that it started to smell an awful lot like the gas station.
5
Marty lurched forward in the firm cradle of the seatbelt. Fifty feet below and a hundred yards away the Ohio River flowed in a gentle bend from her left to her right. The muddy waterway was stuffed with recovered rust-red barges except for a narrow, cleared channel down the middle. It reminded her of a bathtub full of kid toys.
“Oh, hell,” Chloe said while guiding the truck down the grassy slope.
“What's your move?” Craig asked for all of them.
“I don't--” she cut herself off as she whipped the wheel and narrowly avoided a pipe sticking out of the ground.
The roar of the planes continued behind them, but Marty was unable to crane her neck that far backward. The best she could do was strain to look in the mirror out her window, but she was disappointed to only see a white cloud hanging back there.
“They're over the town,” Mark said with urgency.
“I know,” the young woman snapped back.
The truck made it off the steep bank of the levee and onto the more level approaches to the river, but now they saw nothing but barges lined up and down the bank with no easy way to reach the waterline. Chloe had to veer to the right and the truck canted dangerously toward the waterfront.
Both men shouted as they fell sideways in the rear part of the cab.
Marty's eyes were drawn to the sky to her right, above the town. The white cloud had been pulled over the buildings, but more planes followed and dropped even more liquid. The black shapes cut through the haze like sharks lurking in the riptide and she was floating out to sea.
“Hail Mary, full of grace ... ” she said in a whisper.
The truck bounced up and down as Chloe dodged swales and mounds of dirt along the riverbank.
Marty's heart acted up again due to the growing threat, but instead of the unusual rhythm she experienced before, it was now all over the place. She put her hand on her chest and remembered what it felt like to have a heartbeat more suitable for jogging than cross stitching. It pounded along like she was a spry twenty-two again. The rest of her body couldn't keep up, especially her lungs, so she began sucking in air and found it difficult to speak.
A lone zombie stood at the top of the levee and Marty saw it as clear as she'd ever seen anything in her whole life. The black shape was impossible to miss against the backdrop of white behind it. Yet, even as she watched, the sky became increasingly orange.
Marty coughed what little was left in her lungs, making an ambiguous sound. She pounded on the side window to get Chloe's attention.
“Oh, God,” Chloe replied.
The men gasped from the back seat.
“They torched it!” Mark cried out.
The color orange grew in intensity from behind the levee, as if someone were shining a light to cut through the dense white smoke. The truck began to turn away just as Marty witnessed tendrils of fire rise up into the sky like a strange kind of ground-to-sky lightning.
“Hold on, guys, I'm going to ram those barges.” Chloe mashed the gas pedal, and after changing course one last time, they all saw how their ride was going to end.
“Wait. Wait. Wait!” Craig shouted.
But the orange glow changed the tint of everything around them. The red barges. The green trees. The brown water. It all took on a supernatural light from the event in the sky behind them.
Marty found it impossible to control her heartrate because she'd never felt so afraid. Not even when Liam pushed her wheelchair in front of those looters back at the Arch. She'd been in a lot of scrapes with Liam, but she'd learned to trust his instincts about survival. Now, she was out of her element.
Chloe hunched herself over the wheel with a desperate look on her face as she scanned the edge of the parking lot of ships. The giant barges were lined up with their noses up on the shore, so it was hard to even see the water.
“Shit,” Chloe spat with gritted teeth.
“They're blowing it all,” Mark said breathlessly.
Marty's vision became a narrow tunnel bracketed by black circles. The lack of oxygen was taking a toll.
“Find Liam,” she groaned. If anyone heard her, they made no reply. She didn't blame them because their own lives were in peril at that instant.
I guess I'm ready, Lord, if it be your will.
Her pinhole vision became almost solid orange even as a wall of black shapes approached ahead of her. The truck headed for the water, but Marty had no way of telling if Chloe intended to literally ram the barges or if she had something else in mind. Knowing the young woman even the short time she did, Marty was inclined to trust she had a plan.
The engine roared.
An instant later the seatbelt snapped, and she lurched forward. Everyone screamed. One of the men flew into the dashboard from between the seats with a sickening crack.
After a few minutes of listening to the others yell and cuss, Marty's heart rate came out of the clouds and settled down, so she could breathe.
And her feet were wet.
“My heavens!” she exclaimed.
“Shh,” Chloe said in a hurried way.
“What?”
“Mark is helping Craig out the back window and up onto the barges,” Chloe said. “Your turn is next.”
Marty took in her surroundings. The side mirror out her window was gone. Instead, there was a wet wall of rusty iron. The same wall of red was outside of Chloe's window, but the glass on her side had shattered. Water splashed at the windshield from over the top of the truck's hood.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I found a wedge of space between two beached barges and drove us as far as I could into the water. We can still get free through the back slider, then we climb onto the barges and maybe walk our way to safety. I don't think the zombies can get up there. We have to hurry because these boats are shifting, and my truck will crumple like a Coke can between them.”
Marty took a deep breath and relished the feel of air in her lungs.
“And the orange glow?” she asked timidly.
“A firebomb. They dropped fuel from those giant planes and then a spark caught and blew it up. Or maybe they touched it off themselves. It was a miles-long explosion. I've never seen anything like it.”
“And you expect me to climb out?” Marty said with uncertainty.
“We'll help you. I have no doubt you can do it.”
Mark popped his head back inside the window. “Your turn, speed racer.”
“Yeah, let's see yo
u do better,” Chloe responded defensively.
“I'm kidding, boss. You did good.”
Chloe looked at Marty before turning back to Mark. “I'm sorry. I feel like I wrecked a perfectly good getaway vehicle.”
“You did what you had to do. It's clear up top. I promise.” Mark tapped Marty on the shoulder. “We'll get you up there.”
Marty had no doubt it could be done. Liam would have cheered her on just as sure as these kind people were doing. She hated the idea of slowing them down and being the burden once more, but there was no alternative. If God kept her alive so she could do some good for the world, then who was she to doubt His purpose. As so many times before, there was an opportunity to go on living even after endless calamity. Did the bomb cleanse the earth behind the levee? Was it safe to go outside the truck again? Would they find something up on top of the barges to help them get back to Liam?
She suffered the indignity of being hauled out like a piece of wood. She was shoved through the back window, carried on a shoulder, and then handed up from one man to the next until she stood on the deck of a barge.
She finally saw the horror caused by the fire bomb.
It wasn't that it killed everyone, but that it left some of them alive.
Small groups of zombies stumbled down the levee while their bodies burned with unnatural ferocity. They came over the top of the levee and made for the river, as if a deep part of their ruined memory was left intact so they knew water could quench the fire.
Marty jumped when Mark fired his rifle. A nearby zombie fell over, still a hundred feet from his goal.
“No shots!” the orange-haired woman screamed.
“But this is cruel,” Mark replied. He stayed his weapon for the moment.
“I know,” Chloe said, “but we'll need every round. The bomb was big, but it didn't get them all. Not even close. We have lots of fighting ahead of us.”
Mark looked down his scope at another zombie but didn't fire. He merely grunted and turned away.
The sad-looking fire walker made it almost all the way to where the truck was mashed between the two barges, but then fell over in the mud a few feet shy of the water.
Marty said a little prayer for whoever that once was.
Since The Sirens Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 190