Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (2 page)

Elsa was clipped on one arm. She let out an ambiguous sound, like
air hissing, as she dodged. It took John several seconds to reach
her. He knew he'd taken too long.

The smile on her face invited the challenge.

They met a few feet from the door, but Elsa dipped low as she put
a shoulder into the side of his ribs. He tried to grab her.

What the!

His arms slid harmlessly over her oiled-up midsection. She'd
positioned herself behind him and in one fluid motion put her arms
around his neck and flung herself onto his back. He saw himself in
the dirty mirror on the wall. A bemused look on his face signaled his
acceptance of how this was going to go down.

Elsa's knees dug into his back as she pulled on his neck. The
woman knew her stuff.

He let himself fall backward, praying he'd crush her. The stars in
his eyes from her painful grasp didn't give him many options.

“I should have walked her out the door with her on my back.
Then I would have won the bet,” he thought as he hit the
carpet.

Things happened so fast he couldn't keep up. Elsa hung on but
flipped around from his back to his front as he fell backward. He
landed on the hard carpet, and she let go for a brief second but
re-mounted a second later. She straddled his neck, so her strong legs
trapped his head.

He looked up at his beautiful killer.

“Nice try, John. It restores some faith in my decision to
bring you into my circle, though you ended up failing all around.
Most people do. Half the people are below average, all the time,
don't ya know? You can take comfort you have a long line of failures
marching before you.”

His face was probably beet red, though he couldn't voice a witty
retort. It didn't matter. Her thighs were crushing him.

“Good help is so hard to find, but I'll muddle through
this.” She hunched over, bringing her face as close to his as
she could. “I'm taking your soldiers, John. I'm taking them
into the wild, and I'm going to use them up. I needed all your boys
outside the fence so these dumb townies had no idea
you
would
abandon them. And, since you won't be alive to explain, they will
curse your name until they're all dead, too. Two problems solved,
with the bonus that the fault is all yours. You will be forever known
as the general who killed Cairo. Maybe they'll make a monument after
this is all over.”

She didn't wait for a reply, though she called to someone outside
the room. “Zeke, I need you to toss the general in the pit
after I get all the soldiers beyond the highway. I want these people
to have his body handy, so they don't come looking for him.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“We leave this dump in five.”

Nineteen days since the sirens.

Liam halted between two floors of a St. Louis skyscraper. He
pulled the backpack from his shoulder and set it on the floor. There
was enough light from above he could see what he was doing. Looking
down the dark stairwell, he'd soon need a flashlight.

He'd just left his mom, Travis, and Haylee on floor 42—they
were all influential members of the Patriot Snowball—so he
could get back to Victoria. On the steps, alone, he could think
things through.

He put on the tan T-shirt given to him by Travis. It said “Yuengling Drinking Team” in big block
letters on the front. It struck him as funny he wouldn't legally be
able to drink for another five years. The Old World standards had
likely been thrown out, though. He could probably walk in and get
served at any bar, as long as he had something to trade. Paper money
would soon be worthless. It hadn't crossed his mind much lately
because there was nowhere open and nothing to buy. His cheap wallet
was back in Grandma Marty's basement. He'd tossed it on his bed that
first day after he came home from the library. It held his library
card and an Imo's Pizza punch card. He was only two visits away from
his “frequent pie-er” bonus pizza.

Mmm. Pizza.

He was near-starving. His mouth watered at the thought. Pizza and
beer. Two joys of life now fading from the planet. He rooted through the backpack Travis gave to him as he left the lair of the
Polar Bears. As he guessed, it had two of the energy bars—both
strawberry flavored—that had been handed out by local
governments at the outset of the collapse. Travis had packed three of
the FEMA-issued plastic bottled waters, too.

His thoughts turned inward once he had the shirt on. He was on the
cusp of doing something stupid, again. Leaving the safety of the
group of freedom fighters so he could go out—alone—and
run the streets back to Victoria seemed more and more insane as he
thought things through. Was he doing it because he'd been dazzled by
Victoria earlier that day when they were both alone in her old dorm
room? He didn't like to think of himself a victim of circumstance,
but it sure seemed like he was going back to her because he was “girl
crazy,” or something.

It didn't change the fact he
was
crazy for her. He'd told
Travis he'd tear the heads off every zombie between himself and
Victoria if he had to. In the relative calm of the stairwell, that
still held true. Given the choice of fighting in a war alongside his
mom—even if he agreed with her—or going back to be with
the girl of his dreams, he thought he was making the right call. His
mom didn't need him. Victoria did.

No, she's stronger than you, Liam. You need her.

There it was. Did it mean he was growing up? Was it a sign of
maturity to think being with a girl was more important than being
with his mom? His mom had said something about being glad he and
Victoria weren't together before the Zombie Apocalypse. It was a
confusing statement when she said it, but with enough time to think
about it, he accepted she was right. He'd disobey any order, curfew,
or grounding to be with Victoria. Somehow that lessened his belief he
was being mature about the whole thing, but the more he pictured her
in his head, the more he was ready to go find her.

He admitted his reasoning was suspect, his schemes were clumsy,
and his mom would not approve, but he was absolutely sure Victoria
would be glad to see him walk through her dorm room again. Nothing
could shake him from that vision, and that was all the green light he
needed to continue with his journey toward her. Plus, it distracted
from the sadness for his now-dead father, and probably-dead Grandma
Marty. If Victoria died while he was off pretending he was part of a
rebel army...it wouldn't be good.

He got up again and walked down the steps with grim fortitude. He
only stopped once, to get out the little flashlight. He held that in
his left hand, while he held a Glock pistol in his right. He kept the
backpack and his AK-47 slung over his shoulders.

When he hit the ground floor—where he and his mom came in—he
paused before opening the door. Such practice was common these days,
so he didn't pat himself on the back for taking the basic precaution
in the Zombie Apocalypse. But he was thankful of his caution because
the lobby was half-filled by wandering zombies.

When they entered the building earlier, a good number of zombies
followed—he didn't stop to count them—but he judged there
were more of them inside the lobby than he'd seen on the streets
around the building. Once again he was reminded of bloodhounds.
Somehow the zombies he'd interacted with earlier in the day had found
him. That was the only logical explanation. The infected always
seemed to keep coming once they had victims in their sights.

He stepped away from the tiny glass window in the fire door.
Pushing the door open and making a run for it was suicide. No amount
of bravery or “girl crazy” energy was going to change
that fact.

Do I go back up and pretend this never happened? I could be
back by mom's side in twenty minutes. Play it off as a joke. Or, go
down into the basement and look for a way out?

The calculus of his equation resulted in an answer of Victoria.
The only way to solve all the variables was to keep going forward.

He snuck away from the door and flicked the light back on as he
descended to the next level.

2

He'd forgotten something important about his arrival in the
building. They came in through the glass on the ground floor lobby,
but they took an escalator up one level. That's where they'd gone
into the stairwell. From behind the window of the door, he looked out
on the marble entryway and could just see the broken window next to
the revolving door that opened up to the street outside. Pulling
back, he could see the big letter G for ground floor on the wall next
to the door. He'd been off by one.

There were zombies outside the door, but only a few. Compared to
the floor above, it was a ghost town. Judging their position and
speed, he visualized himself dodging them and exiting to the street.

“Don't open that door.”

A male voice from behind made him jump.

The small flashlight was enough to see the face in the darkness on
the landing below. The stairs continued downward to who-knows-what.
Fear and surprise had paralyzed him, so he was content to stand his
ground and respond. He spoke just loud enough to be heard inside the
empty stairwell, but, he hoped, not outside the door.

“You scared the crap out of me.”

“You can't let them in above. They already got in...below.”

Looking closer, the man had evidently crawled up the steps. The
stairwell continued down on the left side of the landing, and the
man's legs were hidden down the next flight. He had blood stains on
his back.

“You've been bitten, haven't you?”

He laughed with a wet cough. “They're all dead, down there.
I'm the only one on this side of the garage. Others might have gotten
out through the main gate. And yeah, I'm done for.”

He scraped himself across the concrete and managed to prop himself
up and sit against the wall. A smear followed him.

“Don't suppose you have a smoke?”

The man was middle-aged. He had scruff for a beard like he'd not
been able to shave in ages. He wore a bright Hawaiian shirt, and in
many ways looked very much like his dad.

Liam hopped down a couple of risers, then sat so he could talk in
a quieter voice.

“I don't smoke. Are you with the people upstairs?”

He shook his head. “There are people up and down all these
buildings. Tryin' to stay alive as best we can. My group was in the
garage. We sent people out through the opening to scout for food and
water. We also sent people up into this building, but it had been
picked clean. Just ransacked offices.”

Liam wondered if the Polar Bears had done the ransacking. It made
sense if the skyscraper was their base of operations for the city.

“Then we had one of our people—a young woman—come
back from one of those snatch-and-grabs with a nasty scratch on her
arm. Said it was done by one of them zombies, but she didn't get
chomped. We fixed her up and thought nothing of it. Left her with her
father.”

He knew where this was going. That morning he'd seen two of his
fellow travelers get scratched and then...walk away. Like they'd been
brainwashed.

“But she wasn't good to go. An hour later we found her
attached to the neck of her dad...it was god-awful. But the worst
part was what she did next.” His breathing was labored, but his
voice was steady. “We naturally tried to pull her off—several
of us—and she sprayed blood in our faces. One big exhale, and
we were all infected. But it affected us in different ways. Some
turned in minutes. Others, like me, are dragging it out. I had time
to fight to protect my family...but in the end, it was—”

He choked up, planting a hand over his face.

In a whisper, he said, “Some of those things went berserk
like I never seen before. Biting. Scratching. Spitting. It all
happened so fast. A few dozen of us—all survivors of the worst
of things the past few weeks. All fighters. The whole place was wiped
out.”

“And you don't know if any got into the stairwells, or went
upstairs?”

“No, it's just me. I had to—”

A big sniffle.

“—put down whoever I could.”

Well, thank you for that small favor.

He was concerned this would interfere with his desire to leave the
building and find Victoria, but the man's answer told him otherwise.

“Will you do me a solid?”

“I'll do whatever I can.”

“Shoot me dead. I don't want to be one of them things. I
don't want to kill anyone else.”

“But you haven't turned. Maybe you won't.”

“Everyone does, son. Everyone does.”

He thought of Grandma Marty.

Not everyone.

“I don't know...if I can.”

“Never killed anyone, huh?”

That was a loaded question. It all depended on whether the zombies
were dead or alive, and whether he believed they could be restored to
health with a cure. The honest answer was that he'd never put down
anyone who wasn't a direct threat to himself or his friends and
family. Putting a gun to the man's head in this stairwell would be
something new.

But if he was infected, it was a matter of time before a decision
had to be made.

3

Liam stared at the body. He'd haggled with the man, and finally,
he loaned him his Glock. Now the back of the man's head was a messy
stain on the concrete wall. The pistol had fallen to the guy's far
side, giving him one more dilemma.

The gun had the man's blood on it.

Getting blood on him could be a death sentence.

Losing the gun to superstition could also be a death sentence.

The infection was everywhere, and nowhere. Getting bit was an
immediate death sentence, but getting scratched also had some effect
on people, though not everyone. He'd seen plenty of people fight
hand-to-hand with zombies, and survive. He'd also been sprayed with
blood, so that wasn't always the end, either. But the man had said
there was something different down there. She spit blood at them. For
some reason, that put fear in him that the blood on the gun was
dangerous.