Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs (31 page)

I should have just shot them.

He remembered he didn't have to be silent anymore.

“Drew, hold up.” He pulled out his
pistol and made short work of two zombies, but the third was lucky.
He did get a shot off, but it glanced the side of the zombie's skull
rather than pierce it. Drew was off balance from complying with
Liam's commands. The zombie was able to take him down, sending them
both tumbling off the trail and into the brush. Liam looked at
Grandma and ordered the other two boys to look after her while he
jumped into the bushes to help his friend.

“Liammmmm!”

Drew and the zombie had rolled together for ten or
fifteen yards. They landed up against a large pine tree. The zombie
was on top, but in a weird angle. He was sideways, but was regaining
his bearings and moving for the head.

Liam was running full speed down the hill and he
found himself looking down on the two fighters. He realized he
couldn't shoot the zombie in the head because it was right over the
top of Drew. He used precious seconds to get a better angle.

“Hold him off for just a second, Drew!”

The zombie was an average-sized man, though larger
than its prey. Drew was fighting, trying to keep the man's head away
from his. He was able to lock his elbow on his own chest and hold his
opponent's neck, but he cried out in pain as the man's weight started
to bear down.

Liam was right there. He only needed a few more
seconds.

Drew let out a painful scream just as Liam loosed
his first shot. He hit the zombie square in the temple. For once,
there was very little blood. The zombie just stopped moving.

Together they were able to push the
dead—deader—zombie off to the side, and it careened a few
more yards down the leaf-covered hillside. It came to rest in some
dense bushes.

Drew showed he was all right and un-bitten, but he
seemed to have strained something in his arm and he could no longer
bend it properly. They both reacted to more screams from up the hill,
where they'd left Grandma.

Liam pulled Drew to his feet, put his gun back in
his waistband, and together they began struggling back up the slope.

I wonder if any of this is poison ivy?

He was deathly allergic to the stuff. His mind was
doing its own thing again. It liked to go on walkabout when Liam's
body was under a lot of stress.

“Bobby!”

The child's scream was a panicked one.

They were nearly back up to the trail when the
young boy Bobby went running full speed by them, further down the
hill. He had dropped his spear and never looked at Liam or Drew as he
went by. He tumbled but got back up and continued until he was out of
sight into more dense foliage.

“Grandma!”

As Liam arrived back on the scene, he was shocked
to see Preston locked in a struggle with a zombie girl—about
the same age and size as Preston—who seemed particularly angry
and bloody.

“Hang on, Preston!”

Liam covered the distance to his young friend in
just a few seconds and gave the girl a powerful kick to her side. The
momentum of the kick broke a few ribs in the zombie, that much was
plain to hear, and the girl rolled off her victim. Liam noticed his
shoe was slopped with the girl's blood. It evoked anger for reasons
he couldn't explain.

He knelt on one knee over Preston, pulled out his
pistol, and put two shots directly into the face of the menacing
threat. She had regained her feet and thus fell backward and down the
hill when Liam's shots ended her attack.

Preston, now lying motionless below him, started
to quietly cry.

His anger for Bobby was boiling over. He shouted,
“Bobby! You left Preston to die!” He followed up with
some expletives, which weren't normally in his vocabulary.

Liam wasn't blessed with a loud voice, but his
anger amplified what he had. They probably heard him in the camp.

Good for them.

“If I ever see Bobby...”

He felt a hand on his arm. “Liam. Its OK.
I'm OK. He's just a little boy.”

His anger went from boil to a medium simmer.

“Are there more zombies up here?”

He scanned the wooded hillside, but none were
visible.

Drew and Preston checked each other for bruises
and broken bones while Liam and Grandma continued their conversation.
“Liam, things are going to continue to get dangerous no matter
where we are. You should leave me here in camp so I'm not a liability
weighing down every decision you have to make to get home.”

“I can't give up on you that easily. We've
come so far. What would I do if I left you here today and the camp
was overrun and destroyed tomorrow? I'd never forgive myself for
leaving you.”

She chuckled at his statement. “Oh, Liam.
There isn't any place on Earth you could put me where there isn't a
chance of zombies overrunning it. It's just the gamble we all have to
take now. At least until we see who comes out the other side of this
thing and can begin to pick up the pieces. Then maybe we can rest a
little easier.”

“No! I'm not leaving you.” And then to
leave himself some wiggle room for the day he knew would arrive
eventually, “At least not here. Not today.”

Grandma seemed to relent.

The older boys put the spears back into the
stretcher and resumed carrying Grandma off the hill. Preston wouldn't
walk in the front, so Drew took the lead while holding the stretcher.
It seemed to be the only workable solution.

They all passed the two dead boys off to the side
of the trail, but no one seemed to have the energy or desire to look
at them. Two more souls claimed by the zombies.

3

The journey down the hill was slow. Several times
Drew and Liam nearly lost their grip of Grandma's stretcher as they
slipped on dirt and gravel on the steep trail. A few times they had
to stop for breaks to rest their hands.

At long last, they could see the colorful tents in
the valley through the trees.

“We should put Grandma in her tent and let
her get some sleep. You and I should go see the council so we can
figure out what she and I will do next. We need to leave the camp.
Maybe they'll have advice on the best way to do it. Preston you can
go to your parents if you want.”

The younger boy said nothing. Liam didn't know if
that was good or bad, but after what he'd just gone through he was
inclined to cut him some slack.

They were almost at the clearing of the valley
when they heard movement in the woods to their right. Liam judged
they should keep moving no matter what came out of the trees. Preston
started to run ahead of them, and was quickly into the tents. The two
litter carriers made the safety of the valley just in time to see the
tall weeds separate right behind them.

A small female deer squeezed through.

Liam nearly fainted. Drew never looked back.

“It's OK. Just a deer!”

But just as he said it, he heard more rustling.

This time Liam looked behind him in time to
see—another doe pop out.

“Hold up!”

He nearly pulled the stretcher out of Drew's hands
he slowed down.

“Sorry about that. Look behind us.”

As they paused on the edge of the tent city,
several more deer popped out, heading toward the campers. He noticed
a few more deer further down the line had also come out of the woods.
One savvy hunter must have had a bow at the ready. He downed one of
the females; it would be a nice meal for someone.

He actually scanned the ground for mice and rats.
Those were what he expected to see fleeing a sinking ship.

“OK, let's get moving again. I've got a bad
feeling here.”

They returned to the loaner tent without incident.
Marty was more than happy to have a place to lay down in relative
comfort, even though the late afternoon heat was pretty intense. More
so for those who were fighting and carrying burdens. Not that anyone
was complaining.

After explaining to Grandma where he was going,
and after shaking off a dozen questions from other Scouts in nearby
tents, Liam and Drew headed to the administration building at a slow
jog.

“How do you think you guys will get home
from here? How far do you have to go?”

Liam had to think about it. He'd been in a car
several times on the windy county roads between here and his home,
but he never had to be concerned about mileage. Surely not more than
twenty or twenty-five miles as the crow flies. In better times that
would be a long day's hike, or a couple hours on a bike.

On a bike.

That would work, wouldn't it? He recalled
something from one of his favorite zombie books—the hero used a
bike and trailer to pull his infant son to safety. If he could find a
bike and a kid's trailer, he thought he'd be able to get Grandma into
the small seat so he could pull her along behind him. A book might
just save their lives. With any luck they'd be home in just a few
hours...assuming the streets in the county weren't as bad as those in
the city.

“I live due east of here, near the
Mississippi River. Say thirty minutes by car, however far that is.”

“If things work out, I'd like to volunteer
to come with you guys. We make a good team.”

“No doubt!”

Liam was pleased to have someone volunteer, but he
had to wonder what would drive a boy to leave his mom and dad here to
go back out into the world. Risk it all for someone you didn't really
know. Was that good or bad on balance? Was he suicidal? On a
vendetta? Mad at mom and dad? He realized how complicated
relationships had become now that every decision was colored by the
lens of the end of the world.

He had an inspiration. He paused from his run to
speak with drew. “Will you do me a favor? While I'm at the
admin building, go make sure your parents are OK with you leaving the
camp with me. I'm not sure when we'd return, though I'd like to come
back. You might be out for a long time.”

“Cool, Liam. I'm on it!” He took off
into the maze of tents, lost immediately from view.

Liam resumed the short run to see the council, and
he let himself in and walked right up to the crowded table. The line
of people waiting was shorter in the late afternoon than it was in
the morning, but there were enough people to intimidate him on any
normal day. Today was not a normal day.

“I need to talk to the council. Now!”

He took the steps to the second floor two at a
time.

Near-death battles give me courage.

He had a few moments to himself to look out upon
the tent city from the second floor. He was looking south down the
valley, the shadows of the late afternoon were well formed by the
surrounding hills, and he was amazed again how many people were
there. They had plenty of water, but food—

“Hello young man. You and your grandma have
caused quite a commotion.”

Liam watched as the council made its way up the
steps. The oldest gentleman had to be helped up by one of his younger
comrades. The sight made him think of Grandma, and his bravado
drained away.

“Hello. I'm sorry for barging in, but it's
really important I see you.”

“Of course.”

“We sent Lee up to find you. I assume he
arrived in good order? Did he tell you what happened down here?”

Oh my. Where do I begin?

“Well, yes. Mr. Lee found us and told me Mr.
Hayes said he'd be back tomorrow.”

Liam kept the part about the tracking device to
himself. He had a vision pop into his head, and he saw his dad doing
one of his silly skits where he pretended to be a conspiracy
theorist—tinfoil hat and all. It was his subconscious informing
him of the need for OPSEC. Operational Security. Only tell them the
bare minimum of facts to get what you need.

“Mr. Lee is still out in the woods. We found
a large group of zombies in the next valley and he said he wanted to
try to lead them in a different direction to protect the camp. His
team went with him. You all should know that we saw some zombies on
our way into camp, not far up the hill. We killed three of them, but
they killed two youngsters before we could get them.”

The council woman looked like she was going to say
something, but Liam pushed on.

“Look, I don't want anything to happen to
this place. In fact, I want to bring my family here when its safe. If
Hayes is coming back tomorrow, I want to be gone before he gets here.
If you can get me two bikes with child trailers I can pull my grandma
and leave you in peace.”

“Why do you need two of each?”

“The second bike is so I can bring back a
crapload of guns.”

4

The council seemed to consider his offer. He
didn't really expect much in the way of resistance. He wasn't asking
for much, and getting him out the door would do more for them than it
would for him.

The oldest member of the council turned to Liam.
“Why don't you just take a car? I'm sure we could get one for
you. Can you drive?”

“I don't have too far to go. A few hours on
a bike. I want to ride in the very early morning, hopefully when most
people are asleep. If we took a car we would be heard for miles and
would be a target. I saw cars ransacked on the highway, and was in a
military convoy that ran into lots of roadblocks out there.”

“Hmm. Smart kid.”

The deliberation didn't take long. Liam could hear
them discussing other options he hadn't even thought about. Horses?
The camp did have horses, but they agreed they were too valuable to
give up. A boat? There were a few canoes in the chaos of the camp.
People brought all sorts of gear. The Meramec River wasn't far away,
and a casual float down the river would take the boat very near
Liam's house. But not close enough. Grandma would still have a long
walk from wherever the boat ride ended. ATV's were too loud. Liam
couldn't operate a Motorcycle. Someone even brought a small plane, an
ultralight, but that was wrong for all sorts of reasons. In the end,
the bikes seemed to offer the safest method of travel for Liam and
his fragile passenger.