Last Fight of the Valkyries (30 page)

The guy who seemed to be the leader, Clarence, spoke softly to the
five of them. “Look, I'm not going to do anything to hurt you
kids. I'm sorry we killed your friends, but look at this place. Why
do you think they were guarding this?”

Black spoke up. “They said
you
were coming to take it
over.”

The man released a hearty guffaw. “Me, and what army? What
am I gonna do, drive each tank out of here and come back for the
next. It would take me ten lifetimes. That doesn't include the time
it would take to get these relics started and then clear all the cars
outside.”

It made sense to Liam. “Then why did you come through here,
if not for the tanks?”

“Your crafty friend delayed us, but we're going to finish
our mission. It's just down the road.” He pointed ahead, deeper
into the tank room. “I'll let you come with, but you have to
surrender all your guns.”

Liam looked at all the girls, settling on Black. She had to be
armed, though she didn't display any weapons. How else could she have
ordered these men into the tank?

Victoria let them know she was going to pull out the Glock. She
set it down behind her. Liam watched as the man picked it up and
stuck it into his waistband.

Black also pulled out a gun. She carelessly tossed it behind her.
The leader picked it up with a quiet laugh.

“You can keep the hand tools. Never know when the infected
are going to jump out. But if you try to use those on us, we won't be
stingy with our bullets. Deal?”

Black seemed to speak for the triplets. She agreed with a forlorn,
“Yeahhh.”

Liam was quick with his own affirmation. He took comfort, no
matter how small, in holding his spear.

“Then let's get started. You guys walk that way. We'll
follow.”

The triplets led them all. When they crossed the east-west axis,
they had to step over an inset pair of railroad tracks. To the left,
hundreds of yards down the tracks, Liam could see an industrial-sized
metal door. To the right, the tracks went under another door in the
distance. But there was a short train parked on the line. It faced
the other way, but it pulled several flat cars loaded with tanks he
recognized: World War II vintage Tiger tanks.

“Oh man.” Liam stopped at the sight and pointed.
“Those. Those tanks are
rare
.”

Clarence backed him up. “That explains how they get them in
and out.” He looked at Black. “Well, maybe I could finish
the job of taking all these tanks if I had a train.”

Liam heard her sarcastically laugh behind him.

Everyone had stopped in the main intersection of the room. Liam
wore his desire to see the train on his face, and Clarence seemed to
share his curiosity.

“Let's check it out.”

A short ways down the tracks they passed a number of different
models of tanks. Each row ended at the aisle so they could see each
tank in profile. Liam hardly recognized any of them, but he knew the
distinctive German Tiger. They came to a section that had been
cleared out. A good number of Tigers were gone from their assigned
row. Based on the numbers of missing, and the tanks on the train,
more than a few had been used somewhere else...or they were being
brought in.

“Where are they taking them?” Victoria asked the
group, to no avail.

Everyone moved past two flatbed cars toward the engine. Liam was
disturbed to see blood all over the pair of tank haulers. Like
there'd been a battle here.

He walked along past the flats and saw the side of the engine. It
was painted a happy bright orange and looked like the engines that
pulled his train out of St. Louis. In fact—

“Damn. It says Valkyrie.” He saw the name in black
lettering stenciled on the side of the engine, just as it was on
his
train. This was his.

“You know this train?” Clarence seemed impressed.

“Victoria and I rode this. Well, these two engines pulled
our train out of St. Louis on day three. I remember because it was
named
Valkyrie
.” He pointed to the moniker. “We
left it at the end of the tracks at a blown bridge. Not far from
here. Someone must have brought it back, and put it to work. And I
think...”

He walked a few yards back to the flat car, looked, and then
nodded. “Yep, these flatcars are the same. This blood is dried.
It's ten-something days old.”

“What's a Valkyrie? Isn't it some kind of angel?” Pink
asked her sisters. They'd mentioned reading a lot, so it didn't
surprise him Blue had the answer: “Valkyries are from Norse
mythology. They had something to do with taking slain warriors to
Valhalla, if I remember right.”

“What does it have to do with a train?” Liam asked
rhetorically. No one had an answer.

They spent a few minutes looking around, but the only point of
interest was the large metal door far down the tracks. Somehow it had
to be opened to let the trains in and out.

“All right, this is interesting and all, but we need to keep
moving. I'm two days behind schedule.” Clarence got them back
on the main path. Ten minutes later, they had crossed the room and
stood before a hole in the wall. It was about as big as pickup truck
and carved right into the rock face. Vehicles had gone in and out, as
the dual tracks were obvious on the ground.

“Through there.” The men each had flashlights on their
rifles. They turned them on as they walked out of the light of the
tank room. They entered a dark chamber with a low ceiling. It was low
enough Liam could touch it if he wanted, though he wasn't brave
enough to try it with three guns pointed at his back. The tanks were
practically cheery in comparison to the dark space they were
entering.

Clarence spoke once they were all inside. “The tanks aren't
why we're here. They surprised us as much as they did you. Whoever
put those in here had been doing it for a long time. The Tigers on
that train are from the Second World War. Many others are American
tanks from that war. Probably built in factories right here in St.
Louis and then stored here. But the people who put the tanks here
were also playing around with something else,” he added
dramatically.

He swung his flashlight around. The walls were rough cut by mining
equipment. The whole area looked like it was done in a hasty fashion.
Large chunks of stone dotted the floor as if they'd been left in a
hurried retreat. Several strange-looking pieces of digging equipment
hid in the shadows in the corner. Parked until needed.

“Here we go. Here's one.” Liam looked up where the man
pointed his light. Something had been carved out of the ceiling. It
was a hole about the dimensions of a motorcycle, though that made no
sense. As the light of the flashlight bounced inside the hole, he
looked up and saw a long wooden plank above, sealing the roof of the
hole maybe ten feet above. He imagined he was looking up at the
underside of the floor of someone's rustic log cabin.

“What is it?” His curiosity always beat out his own
safety.

“Look around the room. What do you see?”

The lights of the guns swept the room. Several more holes on the
ceiling were apparent. They were dark shadows dripping down into the
room from above.

And yet, they were not random. Liam got his bearings and saw they
made neat lines, starting with the one they'd reached first. It was a
corner, just as the tanks had made a corner where the rows met.

Found him down in a quarry.

Next door to the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.

These tunnels go on for miles.

The reality snapped in place. Liam saw the rows for what they
were.

“Oh my God.”

He felt the eyes of the girls on him.

“We're underneath the cemetery. They were digging out the
bodies from down here. This is just as McMurphy imagined.”

To his left, the empty holes in the ceiling went on for as far as
the powerful flashlight could reach.

Liam sat on a large rock just outside the room one of the men had
dubbed “the drop out room” because whoever was in charge
here had drilled through solid rock up to the bottoms of the military
coffins in the National Cemetery, then brought down the remains.

When he discovered the pile of broken coffins and discarded
artifacts of the soldiers, he couldn't take it. He had to get out,
back to the light of the tank room.

At least this room makes sense.

The lights were bright enough he could see all the but furthest
corners of the big cavern. Tanks of every color stared silently back
at him.

“Still think the Patriots are the good guys?” It was
Black. Her two sisters followed her through the gap in the wall. Pink
sat on a nearby rock while Blue and Black stood next to each other.
They had ganged up on him.

“They're here to find bodies in there, aren't they? They're
going to use them to spread the infection. I heard what that guy
said. Your dad was part of the Patriot Snowball movement. He helped
kill the world.”

Liam was too stunned to respond.

Blue added, “I—I appreciate what you did to save Pink.
But you have to see how awful those Patriot people are.”

Black seemed to think on that. Eventually she added, “Yeah,
thanks for saving her. But when we get out of here, me and my sisters
will be on our way. We don't want to spend any more time with y'all
and
your
people.”

Liam didn't know how to take that. While he fashioned a reply,
Victoria walked out of the drop out room. She'd been lingering with
the three men as they swept the room.

She took a knee right next to Liam, but spoke loud enough so they
could all hear.

“They're still looking for something back there. They won't
tell me what, but it would make sense they're looking for whatever
was in those coffins that got broken open.”

Liam, unable to formulate a proper reply to the girls, turned
instead to Victoria. “I'm sorry, I couldn't stay in there.
Someone broke open those coffins. The thought—they must have
taken the bodies right out of those boxes and threw down everything
else.”

Noting the girls nearby, he continued, “And these three seem
to believe my dad has some involvement in all this.” He swept
his hand between the tanks and the drop out room. “As if he
could have desecrated graves like that.”

Victoria turned to the other girls, but didn't say anything.

Pink spoke to the whole group. Her voice and mannerisms were more
reserved than her sisters. “I want to say something. You guys
wouldn't believe where I've been if I told you. I've seen zombies
crush the life out of one individual and I've seen them swarm over
whole crowds. I've, like, seen them scrunch themselves into small
metal ducts, and I've seen them spread out across vast open spaces.
I—” She choked up, and as she did so, Blue moved back to
comfort her. “I'm OK. I saw those sick people slither out of a
tipped barge on that muddy bank. I thought that's where I was gonna
die...”

She'd been talking while looking down, but now looked over to
Liam. “But those two...came along and pulled me out of that
mud. They could have kept on driving and left me for dead, no
questions asked. But they stopped.” She smiled weakly at Liam.
“And...I've been watching him every minute since then. He
hasn't said a mean thing about anyone, even that icky captain guy. He
treats his girlfriend with respect. He got us this far into the mine.
He helped us find you.” She pointed to Black. “I don't
think he could have anything to do with the people who, like,
released the plague and stuff.”

Black stepped closer to her, and spoke quietly. “That's not
what I'm saying 'sis. He may be a good guy, but his father, and those
three in the other room, aren't. We gotta be Valkyries—just
like the name on that train engine. Strong. Fighters. Independent. We
can't be anywhere near him or them, or those guys are gonna get us in
trouble. Maybe hurt us.”

The two looked at Blue, as if she carried the most important vote.
Liam couldn't see her expression as she was turned the other way, but
he heard her soft voice. “He rescued me too. I was dead.”
She paused a long time. “As good as dead, I think. And Cairo
was a flurry of activity with the military and people digging in to
protect the town. I didn't see any Snowball people there, so they
weren't the ones rebuilding. But I've not seen Liam or Victoria do
anything that suggests they aren't honest people. I think he's
telling the truth. At least he doesn't think his father is involved
in spreading the plague.”

Better than nothing.

He felt he should be doing a better job of defending the Patriots,
but he had no evidence beyond what he already believed to be true.
His dad would never align with any group that released biological
weapons upon mankind. He'd been in the presence of two men who had
every opportunity to lay blame on the Snowball movement, and both
admitted it was someone in the U.S. Government who released the
plague to kill the Patriot march, not the other way around. But of
course he wasn't recording his conversations to be able to prove it.

Black, still conversing with her sisters, asked, “All right,
so then do we stick with these people when we get out, or get the
hell out of their sight? I vote we run.”

The question hung on the hot, dry air.

2

The three men stormed out of the drop out room.

“Any of you kids have food? I'm starving.” It was
Dave.

Clarence was a few steps behind. He ignored the question. “We've
got to go.”

“Did you find what you're looking for,” Liam asked.

Clarence stopped nearby. “Nothing's left. They took the
bodies somewhere. We have to get back and report our findings.”

“Can we come with?” Victoria asked. When she saw Liam
look at her, she continued. “What? I want to stick by the guys
with the guns.” She left it at that.