Last Fight of the Valkyries (12 page)

After a suitable reflection period, he spoke up. “We have to
go there. To the mine. It's got the answers we need. We know that
much from what we saw.”

They discussed logistics for a long time, then got into the
details. Liam felt better, despite the erasure of his data, the more
they talked about tangible advancements of their plan.

“What do we use for weapons?”

“I don't think anyone is going to hand us some guns,”
though he recalled people handing out guns back in the early days, at
the Arch. “We have to get to work making spears. I want us to
have something to defend ourselves with if we go back out there.”

Victoria seemed to take it in stride. She got up and scoured the
yard for the type of straight wood they'd need for a spear. He was
pleased to see she didn't need to be told what to do. He looked for
his own while they chatted.

“You know, you could stay here. Watch over Grandma.”
He said it with as much nonchalance as he could muster, though he
definitely wanted her to come with him so he wouldn't be alone.

“Oh really? I thought she was going with us.” She said
it while looking away from him, into a dense bramble. She was in the
process of yanking out a large downed branch that had been in there
for a long while.

Could
they take her up the river, over to the…No, it
was madness. He was absolutely sure of that.

“I know you're joking, ha-ha. We can't risk taking her
outside the wire again unless we have both a tank for transportation
and a destination defended by an army.” He laughed. “No,
she stays.”

He pulled out his knife and got to work on the branch. He felt it
was adequate for a nice-sized spear. Victoria dragged over her find.

“Too dry. You need one that isn't so brittle.” He
could see the wood was too old.

In time, they both found the pieces they needed and Liam got busy
with the whittling. They sat under the shade tree as he worked.

Fifteen minutes later, he was satisfied with his creation. “Here
we go. My first Hope Spear in Cairo, Illinois.” He bent the
dialect, just as she had earlier. “May you never need it.”

Fat chance of that.

He passed the spear to her, taking her raw stick to begin work on
the companion. As he put his head down, he lost track of time. When
he looked up, Grandma was sitting inside the screened-in porch,
watching them.

He waved, and Victoria's eyes followed to see who was inside.

An awkward silence passed between all three. Finally, Grandma
cleared her throat, then began, “I can tell you two are
thinking about leaving.”

He looked at Victoria with a little smile. Her face said, “She's
got us.”

“It's OK, I know. I just know. I see these kids inside,”
she nodded toward the interior of the home behind her, “and I
see you two out there. The difference is night and day. I have to say
it doesn't please me to see you go, but someone has to do it. I
missed my chance by a few years.” She gave a hearty chuckle. At
104, she probably missed adventuring by a few decades, though that
didn't stop her from being active during their escape from St. Louis.

Liam increased the speed and pressure he applied to the spear now
taking shape out of the raw wood. He felt his emotions reaching up to
him. He didn't want a sloppy goodbye.

“We'll leave tomorrow. It's getting too late in the day to
be doing anything silly like walking out of a walled fortress into—”

He checked his bravado. He wanted to be brave for Grandma, but
that was hard to do when there were so many monsters outside. He
could claim to be unafraid of what was out there. Explain how
prepared they were. But none of it was true, and she of all people
knew the truth. On paper, it
was
really
dumb to leave.

“—into a world run by people like Hayes and Duchesne.”
Somehow it felt less intense to think about the dangers posed by men
than it did the mindless and insatiable zombies. At least men can
sometimes be reasoned with.

“I understand. I'll be praying for you. Do you know how
you'll get up north?”

That was a hurdle he'd hoped to tackle tomorrow. There had to be
convoys or something going north. Cairo wouldn't have cut themselves
off completely from the rest of the country.

But before he could explain what he didn't know, a voice called
out from the nearby bedroom window of the house. It was the same room
Liam vacated earlier in the day. He thought back and recalled the
springs of the bed above him were depressed. Someone was sleeping up
there...or listening.

“I know how you can get to St. Louis. But you have to take
me with you.”

It sounded like the voice of a child, though the dark shadows of
the backyard made the face in the window nothing more than a vague
outline.

“I won't say anything more unless you promise.”

Liam looked at Victoria. She shrugged, mirroring his own thoughts.

He put on the appearance of thinking about it for many seconds
while he whittled, but knew he was going to agree.

He felt the drama in the moment, so went with it. “We'll be
a terrific traveling triad.”

As he waited for the girl to come out, he realized how stupid it
was to accept someone into his group, sight unseen. A proper fighting
unit, in the spirit he was used to with his online game
World of
Undead Soldiers
, included people with diverse skills so any
encounter could be tackled by the special abilities of the team.
Division of labor, and all that. What skills were they about to pick
up? That question was better answered
before
the invitation to
join.

Liam did not feel warm and fuzzy when Grandma called out, “No,
it can't be
you
!”

2

Liam knew her. It was the girl he'd saved from the top of the
MRAP. She was black, but fair skinned. More of a mixed race. She had
her hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail. As she turned in the
large screen door to talk to Grandma, he could see her hair went all
the way down to her waist. It was wound in braids and had an
ostentatious blue bow near the top.

“You got a problem with me? Why can't it be me?”

Her tone was forceful, but not malicious.

Liam stood up, holding his spear. It was almost done, except it
didn't have a deadly point yet. He wanted to get a better look at the
girl. At that thought, he turned to Victoria to see her reaction. She
was intently watching the screen door too.

When he rescued the girl from the roof of the MRAP, she hadn't
said anything. He was able to coax her from her hiding place, then he
fell, then she ran away. Seeing her again forced him to try to recall
details about her, but he couldn't. All he could remember was that
she was soaked head to toe in blood and appeared small. Nonetheless,
the fact she was unable to get herself to move to save her own life
did not inspire confidence.

Grandma looked out the screen to Liam. Her face illustrated a
question for him, but he didn't know what.

With a sigh, she turned back to the girl. “I saw you in my
dreams. I saw you climb from underneath some dead bodies in a pitch
dark room. I saw you running from the zombie inside the Riverside
Hotel. I saw you looking out over the army of infected down below. I
saw...”

Liam could only watch as Grandma appeared to strain hard to
remember. He had no idea what she was talking about, or how he could
help her. He motioned to Victoria and they both closed the distance
to the screen door.

“Oh, I don't know. I kind of lost you after that. But I saw
you when Liam got you down off the MRAP. You left him lying on the
ground. You ran to save your life. Not his.”

The girl turned to Liam. “This is your Grandma, right? Is
she messed up in the head?”

Liam vigorously shook his head in the negative.

“Hmm, well she seems messed up. I don't remember any hotel.
I think I would remember waking up in a pile of bodies, don't you?”
She too seemed to strain her face, searching for a memory, just as
Grandma had moments earlier. “But I...”

She turned to face Liam and Victoria through the screen. Liam got
his first good look at her. She was about his age—an older
teen. She'd been given a bright green pair of jeans; he knew they
weren't hers because she had been wearing ripped slacks when he
rescued her. The one thing he noticed on her body was all the scratch
marks. He assumed they were caused by the other survivors up on the
roof during the fighting for position up there.

She was short. She appeared as a normal adult height while
standing next to the hunched figure of Grandma, but she was probably
quite a bit shorter than Victoria. Under five feet. Her hair was jet
black and pulled tightly back over her head, the blue bow peeked from
behind. Her face was round and pretty, with soft eyes.

“I can't remember how I got on top of that truck. I just
kind of woke up there.” She looked at her arms. He could see
all the scratches on them, even through the mesh of the screen. Her
face had lots of small scratches too, though they weren't as serious.

“And I don't think I would have left you lying on the
ground. I just didn't see you.”

Victoria made some kind of sound in her throat.

“Look, I'm from St. Louis. My sisters are there. My family
is there. I'd really like to get back.” As she spoke, she
opened the screen and stepped through just as a small orange tabby
tried to escape with her.

Liam watched with amusement as the cat pawed at the screen, though
his attention returned to the girl when she walked right up into his
personal space.

“Please. I'll be quiet. Just get me to St. Louis and I'll
get out of your hair.”

He wanted to tell her flat out she wasn't going to go. She'd left
him on the ground…

Or, maybe she's telling the truth. She didn't see me.

His head was a wreck when he fell off the truck, so he had no idea
if the girl was telling the truth. There
was
a lot going on
during the evacuation. And, he couldn't overlook the fact she said
she knew how to get there. For all her shortcomings, she was one step
ahead of him.

“If we go with you, how do you plan to get us there?”

“Oh no, that's not how it works. I tell you now, and then
you run off and leave me. That's how it happens on TV.”

Liam hadn't thought of running off, but he allowed he might have
done it in this circumstance.

Victoria stepped closer to him, too. “You can go, but Liam's
in charge.” She said it with a commanding tone he'd not heard
before.

The two girls studied each other. Liam felt immediately
uncomfortable. But it only lasted a few seconds.

“Believe me. I'm no leader. Just bring me along and we'll
all be happy.”

The girl smiled at Victoria, and she mimicked the emotion, but her
eyes told Liam the full story. A wary distrust. He knew trust was a
rare commodity these days. There were just as many bad people using
lies to get ahead as there were good people willing to believe those
lies. He took the opportunity to remind himself to ration out trust
like water in the desert.

Liam took a step back, to get himself out of the girl's space.
“OK. How soon can we leave?”

She turned to him with a genuine smile. “Get your sleep.
We'll leave first thing tomorrow. We'll be in St. Louis by
dinnertime.”

Liam doubted there was a home to return to, or that they could
reach St. Louis in such a time frame, but nothing was perfect
anymore. He knew better than to argue.

She was walking back inside when Liam realized he'd overlooked
something important. “Hey, what's your name?”

The girl stopped at the door. “My name's Blue.”

3

The morning went by in a whirlwind. Liam woke to find a piece of
paper had been placed in the collar of his shirt. It simply said to
walk east until he reached the water. Blue would be waiting. It ended
with a time: 9:00 a.m.

He spent a few minutes saying goodbye to Grandma. The previous
night they'd had plenty of time to catch up, share details of their
stories over the past few weeks, and prepare for their time apart.
Victoria was by his side the whole time. They separated with a warm
three-person hug.

“We'll be back as soon as we can, Grandma,” were his
final words.

He arrived at the docks walking hand in hand with Victoria. When
he first saw Blue on the deck of the boat, he was impressed by how
delightful she looked. She wore a light blue short-sleeved top with
some kind of ruffles on the ends of the sleeves. She still had the
same green jeans, but they fit her very well. She got lucky. His own
cargo pants required him to super-tighten his belt to hold them up.
Victoria's jeans—blue—fit her very well too.

For just a fraction of an instant, he imagined that Blue liked him
and was going to try to wedge her way between he and
Victoria—bringing drama into their already over-dramatic lives.
But the thought receded as quickly as it surged. There was no way on
God's green Earth he was going to betray what he had with Victoria.
He'd die for her. They'd even agreed that one day—when the
current crisis ended—they would be happily married together. No
amount of pretty girls was worth the one sure thing in a world of
infinite chaos.

He tightened his hand around Victoria's and pulled her to him.
He'd evidently surprised her.

He tucked his spear under his free arm so he could hold her with
both hands. “I don't know what lies ahead, but we may not have
an opportunity to be alone for a while. I want to tell you that I'll
be there for you. If you're taken again. Shot again. Dragged away by
zombies or bad guys. I will die trying to get to you.”

A wide smile. “Why Liam, that's the nicest thing any
boyfriend has ever said to me.” She was being playful, then
turned serious. “But the world is so dangerous I think I'd
rather someone tell me that instead of something sappy and romantic.”