Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Since the Sirens (25 page)

“Thanks guys. You saved our bacon here, but this can't last.
We have to keep running to the south. There are too many of these
things.”

It was so loud Liam couldn't hear many of the details they were
discussing, but he did catch their intention to push further south
down the railroad tracks while several volunteers stayed behind at
this rail tunnel to hold off the pack of zombies as long as possible.
They would then try to catch up.

Liam was impressed that both the gang members and the hunters
volunteered to join the police in making that happen. He assumed
their families were also heading south, as it appeared to be the only
real route of escape left.

Liam tried to convey what was happening to Grandma, but she yelled
back that all the noise was blowing out her hearing aid so she really
didn't have a clue what was being said. Her smile told him she was
fine. In fact she seemed to be almost calm as he looked at her.

“I'm glad you found Victoria again,” she said with a
wry smile.

Oh, that's why.

Liam felt like the weight of the world had fallen off, now that he
had something to fight for. He wanted to be 100% ready for anything,
so he tried to think ahead.

He grabbed his backpack, dropped it on the rocks, and found his
ammo inside. He pulled out the magazine from his pistol and ensured
he was fully loaded. Victoria was standing close by so he motioned
for her to give her gun to him to reload, which she did. He then
pulled out her magazine to double check it. He knew it was full, but
even so—

Liam was shocked to realize it was NOT full. He had just given it
to Victoria and was right next to her while they pushed from tunnel
to tunnel. She hadn't had time to fire it.

When did I fire this gun?

He couldn't remember if he had switched guns somewhere along the
way. In fact he didn't remember firing
any
gun since they left
Grandma's house. He tried to think of what might have happened,
though the loud banging of the guns around him made it difficult to
process data and think.

In the end he attributed it to not properly loading it in the
first place. He resolved to be better about checking and rechecking
his guns.

He slammed in three rounds, seated the magazine back into the
frame, and handed it—with safety on—back to Victoria. He
showed her the safety again and had to yell to remind her to toggle
it off when she was ready to shoot.

The sound of gunfire was reaching epic levels in the tunnel. He
knew the time to move on was at hand. But all the while, men and
women were trickling in from above, both rounding out the shooters in
the front, and fattening up the civilians in the back.

Liam prepared Grandma.

“We are moving soon!”

3

Liam happened to be looking directly north out the mouth of the
tunnel when he saw a massive explosion well inside the park. Not
quite on the central staircase, but a little north of it. The
resulting shock wave pushed a warm current through the tunnel. Liam
had no idea what caused the explosion but the captain seemed sure
when he said, “HERE COMES THE AIR FORCE!”

The promised attack by the military was starting. Some of the
people cheered, but Liam noticed not many of the police joined in.
They undoubtedly remember the radio message both telling them to
clear out and to forget about getting across the river to safety.
Liam felt an excitement to see so many of the sick get destroyed, but
it was tempered by the vibe coming from the police.

The initial bomb must have been a signal to fire freely at the
massive gathering of infected. Liam dared to move closer to the exit
and watched as the hillside above them began erupting in all manner
of explosions. The captain ordered everyone to retreat as far back
into the tunnel as they could. The men were still shooting the
zombies in the railroad culvert as they continued their inexorable
march forward into the hail of bullets.

“I don't know if the Air Force knows we're here, but if they
drop one of those big boys in this area, we are going to be in a
world of hurt. The shock wave will rip us all apart, even if it
doesn't hit us directly. Those smaller explosions are from tanks on
the Illinois side. I guess the Army wanted to use their toys too. And
why not. We may never have a better chance to have so many plague
victims in one spot like this. But I don't want to be collateral
damage and you don't either. We have to move out!”

He pointed out the back of the tunnel, which lead to a railroad
bridge carrying the tracks over some streets and then south into an
industrial area along the Mississippi River. From there Liam guessed
they ran along the river practically forever.

The captain organized a spearhead of his men and sent them ahead.
He then had all the women and children, along with Grandma and the
wounded, head out and follow his men. This time there was no speech.
He wanted everyone out of the area pronto.

Another large explosion seemed to be directly under the Arch. Liam
realized they were starting up north and probably working their way
down south. Surely they knew any survivors would be down here, right?
Were others up north?

His father's voice popped in his head, giving one of his “life
lessons” on government. “Always keep in mind the only
thing you can count on in government is that they make things worse.”

Confidence is low.

Liam loved the military because his dad loved the military. It was
one of the incongruities of his father's otherwise total hatred of
government. Together they were fond of playing military video games,
reading books about military history, and they both celebrated their
ancestors who had fought for the United States. However, on this day
the military had made it clear they weren't going to let him or his
family across the river to find safety from the vile shroud being
draped over the city. That soured his opinion of them.

Still, he took pride in what the military was doing up the hill
right now. As dad would say, “we paid for those bombs so they
might as well be put to good use.”

The volume of sound continued to ebb and flow in the tunnel as he
and Victoria pushed the wheelchair southward and out the back. He
looked around for Hayes but didn't see him anywhere. He figured he
was up in the spearhead moving away as fast as he could. The guy
wasn't really his concern anymore and he had no regrets about that.

As Liam and Victoria pushed Grandma out onto the trestle, it gave
him an unobstructed view across the river. He was stunned to a halt.
Victoria didn't see him stop so she continued pushing the chair for a
few paces before she could stop her momentum. The wheelchair stopped
canted to the left, allowing Grandma to see the same thing as Liam.
He imagined he was watching a movie about a global war. Dozens of
aircraft swirled above, like an angry swarm of wasps.

Several huge planes were droning at very low altitude. They each
had four propellers and were painted dark grey. Two of them were
flying north, one behind the other, while a 'crump crump crump' sound
was coming from the guns hanging out their left sides. Liam had read
about the Spooky's, and he could see they had large guns pointing out
their sides, throwing shell after shell into the horde back under the
Arch.

Two similar planes were flying in the other direction just a bit
higher. Above the jumbos were several formations of sleek fighter
planes Liam couldn't identify. As he watched, a plane would split off
and descend toward the Arch grounds and release its payload on the
horde.

Every once in awhile a bunch of ugly planes—A10
Warthogs—would swoop in from over on the Illinois side and use
their distinctive machine guns in their noses. Liam knew they were
tearing the infected people apart by the hundreds every time they
went by.

The scene was spectacular to observe. So many planes moving in
such symmetry. The coordination required to keep them all from
colliding was amazing. And they were all working together to kill the
infected; that made Liam very happy despite the danger to his group.

He was about to turn and move when he saw the other side of the
river. He could see a formation of M1A2 Abrams tanks at a high point
near the riverbank—and was impressed to see them firing in
unison over into the Arch grounds too. The smoke from their guns was
the only indication they were adding to the destruction, as the
explosions in the park were constant and deafening.

Several little coast guard boats were on the water, but they
weren't armed as far as Liam could see. He had no doubt armed
soldiers were on board however. There was no question they weren't
going to be swimming to safety, even if he had a way to get Grandma
across the water.

High up in the sky he saw the distinctive shape of several B-2
Stealth bombers moving in lazy circles. He knew nothing good would
fall out of those things. That got him moving again.

“Since the zombies can't shoot back they can put all these
planes out here for all to see. But nightmares are about to fall out
of those dark shapes high up there,” he was finally able to
talk at an almost normal level, though he still felt the urge to yell
because his ears were ringing so much, “so we have to move
fast!”

As he straightened Grandma's chair, he looked to his right—back
into the city—and saw a massive new hotel a couple hundred
yards away. It sat in the front row of buildings lining the western
edge of the Gateway Arch grounds, and it caught his eye because it
was circular rather than your typical rectangular skyscraper. He also
noticed its base was thick with zombies too. The dead were coming
from both the north and the south now, heading toward the survivors
and their loud friends in the sky.

They are coming out of the woodwork!

He pushed Grandma with high enthusiasm.

They were several hundred feet further down the trestle when a
massive bomb blew up directly over the last little tunnel in the
park. Once again the shockwave hit them, warmer and with much more
force than before. Liam turned around to see what had been hit.

“Oh crap. I hope everyone got out of there.”

There was too much smoke and debris to see much of anything in
that direction. As curious as he was, Liam knew time was critical in
getting as far away from the action as he could. How far south would
they drop bombs?

He and Victoria did the only sensible thing they could. They ran
like their lives depended on it.

Behind them, the nightmares kept falling.

4

The explosions never let up near the Arch, but after several more
minutes of walking they could tell the military wasn't walking their
barrage further to the south. Though safe was a strong word to use,
Liam felt they were at least safe from those big bombs. Their group
had become spread out, but all were moving on the tracks in the same
direction.

Liam and his friends found themselves on a narrow railroad
trestle, well above the street level below. The sick were thinning
out the further south they walked, coinciding with the increasingly
labyrinthine warehouse district below them.

While he walked, Liam saw—in real life—how the zombie
infection was spread.

A pair of zombies had caught up to a man walking with a leg
injury. He had a pistol but he unloaded the last few rounds killing
the first. Liam paid special attention to how that played out because
he was carrying a pistol too. Then the man tried to parry the second,
which he was able to do pretty effectively for several minutes, but
with his injury he could never get away cleanly.

The man appeared to be looking for some kind of weapon to use, but
he was on a wide-open street. Other than paper and other floating
debris, there were no weapons to be found.

The man finally ran out of energy. He was so close to a fence—he
might have been able to jump it and get away. It looked like he just
gave up. Death descended upon him and made short work of its victim.
Unlike most zombie movies, it wasn't eating brains or pulling out
intestines. Instead, blood was spraying profusely, and the man was
screaming terribly as the thing seemed to chomp on his neck. Then, to
Liam's shock, the zombie seemed to spend time preening itself,
lapping up the fresh blood as best it could.

That was weird.

Liam was several minutes down the trestle when he looked back at
the victim. He expected to see him reanimating, but the man still lay
where he fell. His blood-soaked attacker had moved on.

A few more minutes of walking the trestle and he was barely able
to see the man on the ground because of the surrounding buildings.
Liam knew it was his last chance to observe any changes.

He asked Victoria to stop. He watched the dead man for several
minutes while Victoria and Grandma were drinking some water. He was
about to give up when the man sat up, then stood up, then walked
away.

He explained what he'd just witnessed to Victoria and Grandma.

“So they drink the blood of their victims, but don't eat
their brains?” Victoria had inadvertently stumbled into Liam's
wheelhouse of knowledge about zombie lore.

“It would appear all the books and movies were just fiction,
though some of them do seem to eat parts of the victim.” He was
thinking about a certain foot sitting in a certain car. “No one
had actually seen a zombie until this plague came along in real life.
I think it helps people to think of these sick people as something
less than human. ‘Zombie’ has become synonymous with
brainless—somehow sick—humans. It was only natural they
would also eat brains, as a subconscious way of reinforcing what they
already lack. That is why I wanted to see what happened in sequence
and how long it took. I think these things are more like vampires
than zombies. They are clearly drinking blood while spreading the
infection.”