Last Fight of the Valkyries (14 page)

“Well, I am. But you? You
did
make fun of the captain
after all.” She winked at him.

He huffed. “Well you laughed too,” he said with a fake
hurt voice. Then he thought better of it and moved back to his side
of the boat. There's only one rule when taking a boat ride in the
Zombie Apocalypse: don't piss off the captain.

A few hours went by with nothing to do but sit and nod off. The
sun was high overhead when the motors' pitch changed and the boat
slowed. That got them both off their feet.

The captain piloted the boat into another small side channel off
the main river. There were no structures or anything man-made
anywhere in sight. Liam's mind was filled with years of video games,
movies, and books about dangerous times and dangerous men.

“Is this the part where we get killed? We are about as far
away from other people as we can be.” Then, with a fair bit of
drama added, “There are to be no witnesses...”

Victoria laughed, but she looked at him with serious eyes. She
looked into the cabin to get a sense of what the captain was up to,
but the tinting and bright sunlight made that difficult.

All they could do was watch as the channel began to narrow. In a
few minutes, they came around a small bend and approached another,
larger, boat that was anchored in the middle of the creek or small
river they'd been touring.

More thoughts bounced through his head, speaking only of trouble.
They could be gun runners, deviant hillbillies, a secretive medical
team—it wouldn't be his first, or maybe it was simply the angry
sea captain's club.

The motors were a dull hum as the boat drifted twenty or thirty
feet from the other.

Panic swept through Liam's over-active brain as he realized his
only weapon—his spear—was in the front of the boat. He'd
have to pass the captain to get it.

“Or, he tossed it over the side while we weren't looking,”
he thought. That would be a hilarious end to his ill-planned mission.
“Death by stupidity.”

He moved over to Victoria's side, aware he might be chewed out
again. Maybe he would push her overboard so they could swim to
safety, though the chance of that succeeding were slim when a
motorboat was involved.

A few minutes went by and Liam's fear was being bested by his
curiosity. To Victoria, he said, “Either kill us or get on with
whatever you're doing.”

Almost as if on cue, the captain came out of his cabin. Blue stood
once more at the doorway.

The captain walked up to him, sharing some of his bad breath.
“When we pull up alongside them, I need you two to grab the
ropes and hold us in place. I want to make this handoff quick.”

“Handoff?”

“You two aren't going to give me trouble, are you?” He
reached into a large pocket in his pants. There was something blocky.
He started to pull it out.

Liam tried to step backward, but he hit the starboard motor. “We
don't want any violence, captain, sir.”

The man's hand paused. He looked down at his pocket as if seeing
the situation for the first time. He laughed quietly.

Then he pulled out the object. “Reach for the sky,” he
said with a raspy voice. The banana rocked in his hand and tilted
toward Liam. “I know you two aren't going to give me any
trouble at the oxbow gas station, right? Cause if you do—”
He pointed the banana and made a “pew pew” sound at both
of them.

Liam's heart exited the highway of insane fear and decelerated to
the normal operating fear he felt all the time. He'd have to think of
a way to stop seeing every situation as a trap designed to capture or
kill him. Not everyone in the world could be out to get him.

Just some of them.

The fuel transfer operation proceeded without any kidnappings,
shootings, or fights between crews.

Grandma watched the refugee kids in the living room of the house.
They had managed to spend the entire day with their technological
devices—phones, tablets, whatnots—while she did nothing
but sit and stare out the window into the lonely town of Cairo. More
people were coming in as refugees, she assumed, because they were led
to this or that house on the street. A few teens found their way to
her house, making her wonder if she'd been placed in the wrong home.
She was older than everyone else by 80 or 90 years.

She was refreshed for the middle of the day, but felt the drift
toward a nap nonetheless. It was as if her body wanted to turn itself
off. Another side effect of aging. Or...

The familiar engery surged through her body. Another dream was
coming, and she wondered if it would be as horrible as the last.

In the middle ground between awake and dreaming she was dismayed
to see the same girl as before.

I should never have let Liam go with her.

2

Ten days since the sirens.

Saffron slammed the door shut, a second before the first zombie
made contact with the glass. She felt the steel vibrate, but could be
sure of one thing—there was no way through. Needing
confirmation, she turned around to look out the small view port into
the near-darkness through the glass. More of the undead were stacking
up behind the first. She was breathing as if she'd just finished a
race, which wasn't far off the mark. She'd just climbed to the top of
the Gateway Arch.

“Thank you guys—” She spread the words around
her deep gasps for air.

Unless the zombies could organize themselves and pull the door
open, it would be impossible for them to get through. That, at least,
was good news. Beyond the first landing, there could possibly be
thousands of zombies on the stairs of the north leg of the Arch. Two
or three for each of the 1076 steps. The bodies of her fellow
survivors were lying on about twenty of them.

“—for getting me to the top.”

The banging and moaning of the zombies faded as she walked the
final steps to the summit of the Arch, out of the tram-loading area.
The light from the observation area was a powerful magnet, drawing
her out of the darkness. Her legs screamed at each of those final
steps. She choked back the sadness to stay alert. Even so, her
adrenaline ebbed. All she wanted was to lay herself down and go to
sleep.

She froze near the top. Ahead, a lone figure; a silhouette staring
out the tiny window. Saffron was unable to tell if she was alive or
dead. It didn't matter in the end because she had no weapons.

“Hello?”

The woman gave no clue to her condition. Saffron chanced a few
more steps up the slanted deck of the topmost segment of the Arch
observation platform. The small windows on each side of the walkway
gave her enough light to be sure the woman was alive.

“Are you OK?” As she said it she knew it sounded
insane. Of course she wasn't. Nobody was.

The woman was dressed in blue jeans and a light t-shirt. She was
covered in the detritus of hand-to-hand combat with the plague
victims. Saffron looked down at her own clothing. The gray capris had
become red with blood splatter. Her button-down shirt suffered from
the same abuse. She unbuttoned it and tossed it back down the canted
floor behind her. Her own t-shirt was glowing white compared to the
woman's.

She moved behind the her, intending to look over the top of the
Arch to see into the south leg tram loading area, and was disturbed
to see the woman held a pistol at her side. She kept walking to give
the woman some room. There was something wrong with her, beyond the
background noise of despair and fear everyone shared.

“My name's Saffron. What's yours?”

The woman remained stone-still as she looked down through the
observation window. Saffron looked out her own window, thinking of
better times when she was here. In normal times, parents would be
holding young children as they lay on top of the slanted windows. She
leaned down to get a better look.

Outside, she saw…

“It's the end of the world.” The woman spoke in almost
a whisper.

“Ain't that the truth.” The lush green grass and
remaining trees of the park below clashed profoundly with the dead
bodies, surging zombies, and running groups of survivors fighting for
an extra minute or two of life. To the west, as far as Saffron could
see, crowds of infected crammed the streets of downtown St.
Louis—heading to the last people left alive in the city. “But
at least they'll die out in the sunshine.”

Saffron turned back to the stranger, and tried to engage her once
more. “I'm Saffron.”

After another minute of silence, Saffron brought up the big guns.

“Where did you go to high school?”

The young woman turned to look at her, but remained silent.
Saffron took it as a positive sign. “I went to Northwest. You?”

“Where did I go to high school?” It droned out of her,
and she seemed to think hard. “I went to Ursuline Academy. I
graduated...a few years ago. Why does it matter?”

“I'll tell you why it matters. I know who you are. You think
I'm a hillbilly from Jefferson County who shops at Walmart, and I
think you're a rich snob from the suburbs who shops at the Galleria?
Am I right?”

She tried to be cheery with the stereotypes of St. Louis—she
meant it as a joke. It was normally a safe ice breaker. Instead the
woman began to sob.

“It's all gone, isn't it? Walmart. Galleria. High school?”

The gun hung like damp laundry at the woman's side. For the first
time, Saffron understood what was going on here.

“No, they aren't
all
gone. I was part of a group.
There's help out there. What's your name?”

“Christine.” She spoke like a robot.

“Well, Christine, it looks like we both made it to the
safest place in St. Louis, huh?”

Christine slunk down against the wall below the windows. Saffron
sat down on the other side of the tight space, facing her.

Christine explained her situation. “We thought that, too.
What was safer than the Arch? My boyfriend and I live
downtown—lived—and he was determined to get us here. We
found some of his friends, and some other people along the way, and
made it to the south leg down in the museum. The doors were blown
apart at the bottom, and we were fighting the whole way to the top.
The men were armed with shovels and a few guns. They sacrificed
themselves to protect me and other women. Eventually, it was just me.
I shut the door at the top just like you did.” She sniffled.
“So who's coming to rescue you?”

Saffron considered sugar-coating it, but couldn't come up with
anything that would ring true. Instead, she shook her head in the
negative. No one was coming...

Christine set the pistol on her lap, as she silently cried.

Saffron stood up to get a view out the east side. She'd heard
through the rumor mill the Army was patiently waiting on the eastern
shore, but she saw no evidence over there. If they were over there
watching all of her friends die, including her, she was going to be
very angry. Unable to decide if she felt better or worse in not
seeing the military, she resumed her own survival effort.

“Christine. Is there any way to get down the south leg? You
said there were zombies following you. How many?”

The woman looked up to answer, but just shook her head. Tears
streamed down her cheeks.

“There has to be another way down.”

“There is.” With a shaking hand, Christine pulled the
gun off her lap, and vaguely pointed it at her head. “I'm going
out on my terms. When I'm ready. I'm not going to die of thirst in
this coffin.”

That's what it was. A sealed stainless steel coffin. Saffron
figured they'd both die and be preserved for eternity.

“Hey, your boyfriend wouldn't want you to give up, would he?
My—friends—wouldn't want me to give up either. We have to
keep trying.”

Christine slapped the gun down in her lap again. It was the kind
of careless gun handling which got people killed. “Look around.
Do you see any doors we can use? Both legs are filled with zombies.
The tram cars aren't operational. What else do you want?”

“To live,” she thought.

She studied the interior of the observation deck. It was
remarkably bare. The only blemishes were the bloody footprints from
her own shoes and long-dried smears of blood here and there. The
windows didn't open of course...but it gave her an idea. Moving to
the very apex of the Arch, she noticed a square on the ceiling above
her. It was about as wide as a man, and it gave the lone clue what it
was for.

“Hey, help me up so I can reach this.” She was
pointing up as Christine looked at her. “I think this pops away
and there's a door to the outside.”

With wild eyes the girl focused on her, and began to laugh. “Are
you serious?” As a response, Saffron jumped up as high as she
could, and pushed the square covering. It popped out of its channel,
revealing something above it. A hatch was up there.

Instead of jumping up to help, the girl merely pulled her knees up
to her chest and put her head down. She continued to cry. Saffron was
about to write her off completely when she froze. The girl had
stopped sobbing and froze as well. The floor panel beneath
Christine's feet was
moving
.

“Oh, Christ. They're under us.”

Every twenty feet or so on the curved walkway, pieces of the metal
were bending upward.
Things
were trying to push them upward.

Christine jumped up, and the panel nearly popped open. The eyes of
the zombie peeking through were enough to get them both moving.

“Help me.” Saffron was forceful, but tried to remain
quiet. Christine grabbed her around the waist as if to lift her,
Saffron pointed out that though they were both small women, she was
stronger. She would lift. Her back strained in the effort, but they
only needed an extra foot or two so she could pull the ceiling panel
down, and then see about the top hatch itself.