Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs (3 page)

“I don't know. I have these dreams and they're so vivid, but
I forget them almost as soon as I wake up. I think it's Al telling me
these things.”

“Grandpa?”

Liam remembered great-grandpa Al from when he was a small child,
and through pictures and movies his family had taken back then, but
he had very little direct recollection of the man, other than he was
a kindly person who loved to laugh and joke with anyone who happened
to be in the room with him. As with his great-grandma, he referred to
him simply as “Grandpa” in normal conversation.

“Grandpa is talking to you in your dreams?”

“That feels correct.”

Liam took a minute to study her. He knew she was quite old, 104 to
be exact, but never once had she ever displayed the least bit of
dementia. He didn't think she was starting today. “Alright
then. I believe you of course. But what does he expect us to do about
a cure? He might as well tell us Santa Claus is real.”

Grandma gave him a sideways glance, which Liam took as an
invitation.

“Santa
is
real?”

Victoria hit him on the shoulder, but all three were laughing.

The consensus was that even if there was a cure to this horrible
plague, they were in no condition to find it. They were hardly in a
position to move beyond the tree. Grandma's cane went MIA back under
the Arch, and the big wheelchair given to her by a passerby was lost
last night when Liam whiffed tossing it onto a moving train. He and
Victoria could help her walk for a short distance, but that wouldn't
work for a longer journey. Step one of their master plan to save the
world had to begin at the most rudimentary level. They had to find
transportation.

Liam studied their group. He was the 15-year-old boy dressed in
jeans and a Mountain Dew T-shirt, carrying a small Ruger Mark I .22
caliber pistol inside his waistband. Victoria was his partner, a
modestly pretty 17-year-old girl clad in a formerly beautiful black
cocktail dress covered almost head to toe in coal dust, and
accessorizing with Liam's brown leather belt around her waist so she
could use his holster for a duplicate Ruger Mark I. They were both
caring for Liam's 104-year-old great-grandmother. She was wearing a
light blue pant suit and a head scarf, with the ability to walk
unassisted for about ten feet, armed only with a Rosary. They also
had Liam's backpack which had some sundries such as off-the-shelf
pain medications, a near-full box of 1000 rounds of .22 ammo, food,
and a couple remaining bottles of water.

We aren't exactly the stuff of legend.

Liam wasn't convinced there really was a cure. This was the real
world, not some book about zombies. In the real world, filled with
people with conflicting goals and morals, hiding something as big as
the source of this plague and any attendant cure, would be
impossible. Somebody would talk. Someone would warn the world. The
internet would be filled with anonymous tips from good people who
wished to save humanity.

The answer could have been out there all this time, but he was so
busy playing
World of Undead Soldiers
with his friends he
would never have noticed if someone was screaming it on every news
channel or posting it in every online forum. He lived his life as far
from the “real world” as was possible for someone so
engrossed within a bubble of modern communications. It would have
been a point of pride a week ago. Now it was a major liability.

Still, from a technology standpoint Liam was probably their best
chance of finding clues to help them understand the plague, and to
discover if there was any hope of a cure. But to do that he'd need
access to the internet, and probably weeks of time to study message
boards far and wide. If this thing was global it was likely the
internet was down everywhere—to say nothing of most of its
users either turned to zombies already or fighting for their lives
against the walking dead. That made him about as useless in the
technology department as Grandma—a woman who prided herself at
avoiding anything more technologically advanced than a rotary
telephone.

That brought him back to the present. She still seemed comfortable
sitting against the tree, but Victoria was crouched in the grass
nearby, trying to rub her arms and legs to remove the insidious coal
dust. She was having limited success.

Liam took the opportunity to move back toward the blown bridge.
Whatever their long-term desire to find the cure might be, everything
started right here.

He needed to get the trio to his parents' house. He needed to meet
up with mom and dad. He needed to find allies.

The key to all that was sitting in a police cruiser back at the
bridge.

4

“Excuse me. Officer, uh, Phil.”

The man who had been instrumental in saving them when they crossed
this bridge this morning was the man in charge of the whole operation
here. He was a police office with the Arnold PD, the local
jurisdiction. They had been manning blockades across all the bridges
south of St. Louis with orders to prevent anyone—living or
dead—from crossing to the south shore of the Meramec River. The
goal was to prevent the infection from getting out of the city, but
it also doomed those who were still alive to suffer a horrible death
as they were caught from behind by the growing hordes of zombies.
Grandma was able to convince Officer Phil to let her band of
survivors cross this bridge—and then they used a wrecking ball
to drop it in the river.

By Liam's calculation he was actually in Phil's debt, but he was
hoping Grandma's “miracle” in letting him talk to his
dead wife would have some lasting value for what he was about to ask.

Phil was sitting in his black and white police car with the door
open, listening to his radio. When he saw Liam, he rose from his car
to meet him. “What can I do for you, son? Is your grandma
alright?”

“Yeah, she's fine, thanks for asking. We hate to impose on
you, but she has no wheelchair or cane anymore so there's no way we
can get her home. I was wondering—well, we all were—if
you can help us find a ride home?”

“Where do you live?”

“Not far. My parents have a house in Barnhart.” Liam
couldn't help but show excitement.

Phil gave him a long hard look, then sat back down in his car. The
radio was cackling loudly with several urgent reports. Lots of them
were squelching each other off the air. He turned the radio down
significantly. “On any other day I'd give you a ride and be
back here in thirty minutes. I know you don't live far, but the world
has gone to pot as you can tell.”

Liam didn't know what that meant specifically. But yes, the world
was a mess. Phil took a long time, apparently thinking while looking
forward inside his cruiser.

“I don't know how your grandma talked to my wife and
daughter. It was a miracle by the grace of God. I've been sitting
here wondering what I should do next with my life now that I know
what I know. The fact that your grandma helped you guys cross the
river probably saved our lives too.” He was sweeping his hand
toward the few remaining police officers standing around, near the
destroyed bridge. “All the other roadblocks have
fallen—violently. The interstate was especially brutal.
Citizens refused to be turned back. After seeing the walking horror
following you guys I can understand why no one would turn back to
face it. If I was a smarter man I would have realized that
immediately when I saw you, and reported back to HQ that we had no
choice but to open the bridges to everyone while there was still
time. The dead reached our roadblock first, I guess because they were
intent on following your train directly out of the city. But there
was never a chance of stopping them.”

He stood up, slamming his door. Liam backed up a few paces,
listening intently.

“The citizens refused to be denied the bridges. They began
shooting. Then they began swimming. They got behind the police and
other city workers who were manning the roadblocks. Lots of good cops
died needlessly for a stupid order from the mayor. I can see that
now. What it did was turn the citizens against the police, and then
against the entire city of Arnold. Right now the angry people from
the roadblocks are tearing the town apart. Burning it to the ground.
As you might have figured out, being a police officer for this town
is now practically suicide.”

“Sir, what if I told you my grandma discovered there's a
cure for this thing? I'm trying to help her so we can organize a
mission to find it.” He left off the detail about her learning
it in a dream.

“Well I don't know anything about finding a cure. Would be
nice of course. But the only thing that matters to me right now is
what my wife would want me to do. I believe she'd want me to help
you, and I have to admit I want to stay as close to your grandma as
possible in case my wife wants to communicate with me again. But I
have duties here. People depend on me...”

Liam thought of all the police officers he'd encountered since he
left Grandma's house. Duty was always fore in their minds, but they
were people, too. They balanced duty with their obligations to their
own families, which was why they fought so hard at the Battle for the
Arch, but then had to abandon that fight when their families were in
mortal danger. As a boy with missing parents, he appreciated how they
operated.

“The way I see it, your duties have been fulfilled. If my
father were here he would say it much more eloquently than me, but I
think he would be critical of continuing to work for an organization
that seemed so intent on hurting people.”

“I think I would like your father.” After a thoughtful
pause, he said, “Give me some time here. I'll think about
getting you and yours home.”

Liam walked back toward his companions, hopeful he had just
started them in the right direction.

5

“I think I may have found us a ride home.”

Victoria looked up from what she was doing in the grass. “Does
it involve that military truck coming this way?”

Liam hadn't noticed any military truck, but now he saw a Humvee
painted in multiple shades of green and brown camouflage. It was
alone and heading directly for them on a gravel road parallel to the
train tracks.

Victoria stood up, looking somewhat cleaner, and they moved over
to Grandma to help her stand. Liam didn't know what to expect, but
he'd learned over the past few days to always plan for the worst. The
last time he'd seen the military they were pointing rifles at him
from up on a bridge. The time before that they'd been dropping bombs
on his head.

The Humvee pulled right up in front of them. Liam wasn't surprised
to see the passenger was their secretive friend Douglas Hayes from
the CDC. He was still dressed in his white shirt, but without his
hideous tie. He was now wearing a pair of aviator sunglasses and an
ostentatious CDC baseball cap. He had a big smile for them all.

“Hey guys. So glad to see you made it across the bridge!”

Grandma made a motion across Liam's chest, as if holding him back.
“And we're glad you made it across as well.”

Liam wondered if Grandma said that to prevent him from unloading
what he really felt—which would include a lot of cuss words.
Hayes had antagonized the roadblock officers when they first tried to
cross the now-destroyed bridge, and then angrily stormed off when
they wouldn't recognize his authority with the federal government.
Where he went after that was a mystery.

“I found a friend here who was more than happy to pick me up
and drive me around. I can pretty much go wherever I want now.
Fortunately there are still some law enforcement agencies willing to
help the CDC track down this plague.”

Liam took this as a slam on the police officers who would not let
him across earlier today, although none of them were close enough to
hear the disparaging remarks. He noticed Phil's cruiser had started
to move. Hayes started to speak again, keeping him in the
conversation.

“Liam, what do you say we take a ride with your grandma and
your girlfriend? We can go back to your house, find your parents, get
you all safe, and then I can protect you all.”

Liam couldn't help himself from replying. “Hayes, you told
us the Army wasn't in Missouri anymore. This looks military to me.
Was that a lie you told us?”

Liam saw the driver was the same plain looking redhead woman he'd
seen with Hayes way back in the St. Louis Arch candy shop. She was
wearing a ball cap as well, and she tried to face the other way, but
it wasn't hard to figure out. Her red locks were very distinctive.
That would mean more people than Hayes survived the attack from the
looters underneath the Arch. He'd said looters shot all his coworkers
under the Arch. Was that a lie too?

“This isn't US Army.” He didn't elaborate. Hayes
lifted his phone, and appeared to take a snapshot of Liam. Then he
looked down in his lap. The Humvee windows were very small, so it was
difficult to say for sure what he was doing. “Come on. We can
have you home for a late lunch. Just give me an address.”

“Give us a minute. I want to talk this over with Liam and
Victoria.”

“Sure, take all the time you need. We're going to turn the
rig around.” The Humvee moved fifty feet down the gravel road
to the turnaround at the roadblock.

“Grandma, what do we do? I don't trust him, but it would be
nice if we could agree with him enough that he'd take us home.

“If I've heard you correctly, almost everything this man has
told you has been a half truth. I don't feel right getting in a car
with him.”

“Liam might be right. He was talking to soldiers on the
Jefferson Barracks Bridge yesterday and they wouldn't let him across.
But they didn't shoot him either. Now he's with soldiers again. He's
had plenty of opportunities to hurt us. Maybe it's worth the risk to
get you to Liam's parents where you'll be safe. Surely he has some
pity for our situation?”