Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (29 page)

“Sounds like good judgment. Why don’t you two stay
here with me? If things get bad, we can all go down in my armored
truck.” He patted his Humvee’s door.

“We don’t want to be a bother,” Marty replied.

“Not at all. I would be honored, in fact.”

His mind would not stop delving into introspection. Having Marty
around sated a deep need to be seen during his greatest hour, but it
was also a reminder—like the Roman Emperors of old—that
he must account for the fragility of man. His defense would mean
nothing if the town was overrun and people like Marty were consumed.

The plans altered, in a tiny way, to accommodate her. He wouldn’t
admit, even to himself, how he intended to end this impossible fight.
The three boys, his own men, and the townies may perish, but not her.
There was something special about her he couldn’t quite place.
But he felt it.

Alpha-1 fired its main gun, sending a wave of sound over the
spectators, and a wave of tiny balls into the ocean of undead. The
modern equivalent of grapeshot was devastating to a great swath of
zombies now approaching the ditch.

I’ll keep you alive, Marty.

A cheer rose up as first blood was drawn.

4

Alpha-1 and -2 took turns plastering the zombie swarm with their
shotgun rounds, and despite the great number of fallen, he was
compelled to stop them.

The Abrams tanks carried a mixture of ammo, most of it designed to
counter enemy tanks. Here in middle America, war planners probably
didn’t anticipate the need for canister ammo to be used against
citizens in the open. As such, they would have very few rounds of the
distinctly anti-personnel rounds, and too many of the anti-vehicle
rounds.

“Alphas, this is Warfighter actual. Hold onto your M1028
rounds. How copy?”

The radio crackled. “Warfighter actual, this is Alpha-1.
Hold on M1028 rounds. Good copy. Over.”

Alpha-2 said the same.

“Give ‘em hell with the fifty cals. Out,” he
ordered.

At some point, he may order them to use the anti-tank rounds on
the zombies, though he didn’t think they’d be effective
in the least. For now, he held that order. Everything cost money, and
he’d probably never get replacements. Some day a platoon of
Soviet armor could drive through Illinois—he had to be ready.

Today, the mere act of moving the tanks up onto the levee cost
gasoline—another irreplaceable commodity. He’d need to
conserve that, too.

The leading edge of the zombies—a group of runners that
looked like they belonged to a track club—reached the ditch and
ran right over the edge. They fell five or six feet into the water,
and out of view. He knew from personal experience it was difficult to
claw up the near side of the ditch—where the dirt had been
piled—but it was possible. Even though he knew those first
zombies wouldn’t swim across and claw their way up in just a
few seconds, he expected a hand to pop up at the top of the berm any
moment.

It distracted him until a group of five or six black men and a
couple of women ran by, led by Xander. The boy gave him a wave, and
he returned it with a salute. Everything was going surprisingly well
on the planning side.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” What would
von Moltke think of this battle?

Upon study, he realized the running zombies must walk most of the
time. Otherwise, there’d be no way to explain how they weren’t
miles ahead of the rest of the walking dead.

As the horde closed the distance, he began to hear them. The
guttural moans grew, but so did an odd collection of screeches,
wails, and the very unusual sing-song calls of some of them. The
runners were the vanguard, but even they were acting strangely. Some
of the leaders ran head-first into the ditch, but others were
deflected by the water and ran sideways along the moat. Most appeared
to be aimless, but others happened upon the bridge and crossed.

“...survives contact.”

If all the runner zombies converged on the bridge, they could
cross it en masse and be upon the levee spectators in less than a
minute. He didn’t think it was likely, but he wasn’t
going to mess this up by assuming they were as dumb as they seemed.

“Bravo-2. I need you to move to block the bridge down
there.” It pained him to sacrifice a vehicle, but there was no
other way… “I’ll try to find a replacement for
you, but you are the fastest I have right now. Please confirm. Over.”

No reply.

“Bravo-2, this is Warfighter actual. Do you copy?”

Static.

“Bravo-1, do you copy?”

He got out of his Humvee and looked in the direction of the
Bradley’s. He had to climb onto the hood so he could see over
the crowd. Dillon hadn’t been able to clear the spectators,
though to his credit he was motioning some of them back.

“What the actual horseshit is this?”

Bravo-1, far down the line, began to move toward the ditch. It
crawled off the hill, started up the earthen berm, then bogged down
on the top. The tracks spun, but he could see it was high-centered on
its hull.

Bravo-2 had gone down the other side of the levee, into town.

He jumped down, and returned to his radio, intending to get his
answer.

The screams of the people on the levee made him stop. The confused
crowd scattered in multiple directions. Most ran down the backside of
the levee into town, but some ran toward the zombies. Some simply
fell where they stood…

“What's going on here?”

Marty happened to be nearby. “They’re scared,”
she said with finality.

“But why?” His statement was incredible, even to
himself. The why was pretty easy. The real question was “why
now?”

At that moment a sickly sweet smell washed over him. It reminded
him of a school janitor's puke dust. It came in like the first gust
of a major thunderstorm.

Without realizing it, he jumped in his Humvee and pulled the heavy
door shut with a slam.

Voices on the radio called to him. Someone called Alpha-something
wanted a sitrep from their commander. Orders needed to be given.

“Warfighter. This is Alpha-2. Our foot support is banging on
the hull and shooting at us to let them in. What are your orders?
Over.” The man on the radio was annoyed.

He should kill them all.

“No!” he said aloud.

His hands were on the steering wheel. Was he about to drive away?
What direction was he planning to go? He admitted it didn’t
matter.

“General John Jasper, United States Army. Get a grip!”

He took a deep breath, inhaling the stink from outside.

It was in the truck with him.

“The zombies exude the smell of fear. Amazing...”

He sat frozen for a moment, but his head cleared as he did so.

“This is Warfighter actual. The zombies are causing this.
They're causing the panic. Please respond. Over.” On the modern
battlefield they'd be buttoned up for fear of NBC attacks, but who
would fear radiation or poison gas when fighting zombies?

“Warfighter actual, this is Bravo-2. We’re OK. We, uh,
woke up in this new position.”

“Bravo-1 is back on station.”

He opened the door, and waited for the smell to overcome him
again, but it seemed to have been spent on the initial blast. The
sick smell was there, but he was able to tune it out.

While he had his troopers back in the game, the civilians had it
much worse. They lacked the discipline and support system of the
military, and—John imagined—they suffered accordingly.
Some of them ran over the bridge, into the approaching zombies, while
those on the back of the levee were now inside the town.

But the thing that caught his attention more than anything else
was the little green Gator. Much like Bravo-2, the driver of that
vehicle had been overcome by the olfactory assault and had driven
madly in the wrong direction. In seconds he’d taken the vehicle
down the levee and had it nearly to the top of the berm.

As he watched, the driver continued to run up the berm, then over.
He’d tossed himself into the ditch now filling with zombies.

Just before he toppled over the far side, the tiny woman passenger
threw herself out of her seat, and onto the dirt pile. She was
visible to all the humans and zombies alike.

Nope. My plan didn’t survive for ten minutes.

Marty felt the soil beneath her. The smell of the earth
overpowered the stench of the dead. Her arms and legs ached, but she
didn’t feel the unmistakable pain of a break. The soft ground
had cushioned her fall from the slow-moving, doomed Gator.

“Mr. Duncan, are you there?”

She hoped he jumped at the last second, as she did.

There was no response. The zombies, however, were much louder as
they arrived below her. She was sprawled, front side down, facing out
over the fields. The zombies were without number as they surged in
her direction. Below her, in the water-filled ditch, scores of them
splashed and thrashed against each other. It was a bubbling cauldron
of evil.

“They aren’t evil, Marty.”

“Al! Thank God.”

“Hiya Marty,” he said with his signature Jersey drawl.
“They aren’t evil. They aren’t anything. They’re
mindless bodies that don’t know they’re dead.”

Al sat next to her on the dirt. He, too, looked out over the
approaching wave. It was like being in the front row of a movie
theater. She was compelled to move backward...but not without Al.

“I’ve failed you, Al. I couldn’t protect anyone
in my family during this plague. The only one I could help was Liam,
and he’s gone again. If this is what the rest of the world
looks like, I don’t think any of us can survive.”

“You hear the sirens’ call, Marty. You have a gift.”

It made no sense, but she was used to his confusing words. Or her
own confusion. She still wasn’t sure if Al was in her mind, or
if her mind made him up. Either way, he forced her to make choices,
which she admitted had kept her alive through some desperate times.

“If I hear the call, why couldn’t I talk to you while
I’ve been here in Cairo?”

He didn’t say anything, but he nodded out to the zombies.

“You’re not going to say, are you?”

“Marty, your search for answers is admirable, but as I’ve
told you before, you can unlock the answers from your own brain.”

She didn’t turn around, though she knew the general and his
tanks wouldn’t be there. She heard no gunfire from back there,
reinforcing her belief she was dreaming. Daydream. Nightmare.
Whatever.

“I couldn't hear you because the zombies weren’t
here.”

“That sounds implausible,” Al echoed from an earlier
conversation.

“But not impossible,” she retorted. “I’ve
been safe inside the town, far from any zombies.”

“Maybe that’s it,” he said cryptically, “but
what are you planning to do to save them?” He pointed out into
the field, where she saw Liam and Victoria standing on an abandoned
tank as they tried to fend off the infected horde.

In the pit of her stomach, she felt a firm yank. The realization
that she was somehow responsible for their safety—her, a
104-year-old woman now lying on the leading edge of millions of
zombies—made her cringe.

“But you already helped me save them,” she said
weakly. Though true, that was all in the past.

“And now I’m going to help you help them again. This
doesn’t end until you find the cure to the plague, my dear
Marty.”

“Is this about that old computer?”

She thought back to her earlier meeting, where Al showed her an
ancient computer in a closed room. After she had accessed it, she was
able to...control a single zombie. It had saved the lives of Liam and
Victoria when they most needed help.

“You three have an important connection. That computer was
merely a way to organize your mind and access information there.”

“No. That’s not true at all. I saw you move that
zombie so it helped Liam.”

“My dear. That sounds like magic. Are you suggesting the
world is filled with magic? That you are a sorceress and that you and
I used that magic to cause it to rescue him?”

That stuck a nerve against her religious sensibilities. She didn’t
believe in magic. Her belief was in a single benevolent God.

“No...I think, I...”

Her words failed her.

“My sweet, dear Martinette. You’ve overlooked
something very important from our first meeting, but now isn’t
the time for loquacious expositions. You really are lying here on
this berm, and those zombies are definitely over there, trying to get
at you. They are attempting to get at us both.”

“What? How? You can see in both worlds?” It seemed
obvious since he said he was in her mind. Supposedly he could see
through her eyes, but his words suggested something more.

In a prior meeting, he had waved off the notion that he was an
agent of God. Or, at least didn’t explicitly say he was. He
suggested he was part of her mind, helping her cope with all the bad
things that happened to her since the zombies came. But he left open
the possibility of...something else.

“Or...” were his final words from that conversation.
If he wasn’t speaking for God, and he wasn’t her own
brain making things up, that could mean any number of things...

She startled herself awake. The pain in her arms and legs was real
this time. The same as she felt inside her dream.

It has to be God.

Whatever else was going on, God was guiding her. For now, she
would trust in that to get her and her family to safety.

Wherever that was.

2

Marty felt someone touching her back, helping her sit up properly.
She judged it was just about the last person in the world she
expected.

A young teen girl—Debbie—that she knew from her time
back in the refugee house. She’d never seen the girl without
her phone, but now she looked like something out of a movie. She wore
big black boots, black pants, and wore two long-sleeved shirts that
draped over her like wild capes. The ensemble was completed by a
military-style ball cap that she might have gotten from a surplus
store or any of the soldiers that had been protecting the city.