Last Fight of the Valkyries (33 page)

He turned to catch Victoria—if she needed help, which he
never presumed she did—and watched as a hand grabbed her just
as he planted her foot to make the jump. It stole some of her inertia
and she fell a foot short of where she aimed. She landed with her
stomach up against the rear of the Abrams, and let out a loud croak
when she did so.

Liam was on his knees in a second, but there were so many zombies
below, it would have been a miracle if she wasn't grabbed.

“I've got ya!” He had one wrist, then the other. She
hung over the side and he could only watch as an ugly, broken image
of a man grabbed Victoria's leg and took a bite. She was shocked and
reacted with a backward kick which threw the man off. But others had
her too.

Liam saw Victoria turn back to him, a look in her eyes he'd not
seen before.

“NO!” He refused to yield. Whether she was bitten or
not, he was going to get her onto the deck. He braced his legs and
pulled with everything he had, the deficiencies in his diet
temporarily ignored. Victoria, to her credit, pushed herself up the
side of the armored fighting vehicle to help, though she yelped a
couple more times as the zombies took their opportunities to bite
where they could.

The only thing that saved her was the zombies were more interested
in using their teeth, than their arms. They made no effort to pull
her back into their makeshift mosh pit.

Liam dragged her as far up the deck as he could. Right up to the
rear of the boxy turret.

He was afraid to look.

2

“Liam. You can let go. You saved me.”

He hadn't loosened his grip, though they were temporarily safe. He
was afraid that once he let go, she would start to change into a
zombie, and he couldn't imagine what that meant for him. What he'd
have to do...or if he
wanted
to do those things.

If she dies, I die. I knew this is how it would go down.

But he relented. Victoria pulled her arms from his, and scooched
up the deck so she was leaning against the turret. Liam mimicked her
by taking the seat next to her.

When they first met, he was afraid to look at her bare legs
because he found her distractingly pretty. Her legs were
well-sculpted runner's legs. Now, he felt the same fear at looking at
her legs, though the reason was something else entirely.

Victoria pulled her legs to her and looked them over. She was
wearing blue jeans—because she hated to get mosquito bites.

“I think I'm good. They bit at my legs, but they couldn't
break through the material of these jeans.” She pointed to the
bloody bite marks, but when she pulled her jeans up to her knees,
there were no abrasions—just a few ugly bruises.

She let out a fatalistic laugh. “I'll take it.”

Liam's swirl of emotions got the best of him. He leaned over to
her and felt the waterworks start. She seemed to take it all in
stride.

“Someone's looking out for me,” she laughed again,
though it sounded like she was also tearing up.

“I thought we were both dead.” He didn't tell her that
he meant that literally, as he was ready to fight to the death
against all the zombies to get away from having to kill the zombie
version of her. But it was near enough to the truth.

“Well, we're not out of this yet. And maybe next time you'll
consider wearing jeans too?” She said it to be funny. Something
he desperately needed to hear. But there was truth there too.

He pulled back and looked at her, sharing tears. “I'm going
to wear a full set of armor next time I find one.”

She stood up first, and pulled him to his feet.

“Onward?”

He looked ahead once more, they had five or six rows to go. Five
or six more jumps and they'd know the fate of the men supposedly
leading this operation. His only hope was that they had some
miraculous plan, because he still had none.

The jumps between the Abrams tanks went much faster, and with less
danger. The front deck and rear deck of the modern battle tank were
almost the same height, so it was practically a walk in the park to
skip from one to the next, no matter what was below them.

Lava is below us. That's less scary than what's really down
there.

He played the children's game of jumping the imaginary lava until
they reached the last tank in the column, which was also the last
tank in its row. It was the cornerstone tank where the men were
supposed to be hiding.

Liam rapped on the outer metal of the turret, hoping those inside
could hear it over the generalized noise of all the angry zombies
humming below.

The top hatch popped open in seconds.

“Hey, Liam. You made it. There are a few more than we
thought.” It was Dave.

Typical understatement.

“Did you see Clarence? We saw him run into the tanks, but we
had to jump in this first one before we saw where he went.”

He was slightly out of breath from his tank hopping, but he
answered when he could. “We saw him run into the room, that
way,” he pointed toward the fire, “but not sure he's
still there.”

Then, to the important question for the adults in the room. “So
what's the plan?” He'd spent weeks thinking of plans to help
people escape zombies, often drawing from his voluminous reading of
zombie books. Often, he wondered why it took a teen boy to solve the
problems of adults, but he'd resigned himself to not knowing the
answer. It may have been as simple as he just came up with good ideas
faster than anyone else, or maybe he always saw the obvious answer to
the questions. Or, maybe he was just super lucky.

But this time, he literally had no idea whatsoever how to escape
this fix. He wanted to dish off that problem to someone else for a
change. The only problem was they were already a man down—Clarence,
their leader, was missing.

He wasn't reassured by the look he got in return.

Liam was distracted by a sudden burst of noise. The zombies seemed
to scream as one. He felt a hand on his back—Victoria—seeming
to convey a dictionary's worth of messaging in its simultaneous
firmness and gentleness. It was a caring and strength which said,
“This is bad, but we're in this together.”

Liam looked to the commotion. Across the wide road which marked
the middle path linking the entrance with the intersection at the
middle of the room as well as the drop out room, he saw three figures
standing on the nearest tank. It was almost a mirror image of his own
tank—currently with three forms on the top. But the three girls
were distinctive with their diminutive size and fancy braids.

“They made it,” he shouted.

The hand on his back passed on another subtle message. It told him
to look the other way, toward the entrance. His eyes focused on a
sorry-looking group of soldiers. They wore tattered uniforms, a few
had thread-bare hats, but most just had ragged heads of hair. They
walked as a group, as if they were still in the Army, though Liam
knew it has to be a coincidence. The other zombies also seemed to
give the soldiers some space, though that
had
to be
coincidence.

Liam, out of ideas and attempting to counter the abject terror he
felt upon seeing them, simply said, “Well, I guess we know what
happened to those desecrated graves.”

The hand on his back remained silent.

3

“Liam! Victoria!” One of the girls from across the
aisle yelled for them.

Liam waved.

Blue shouted as loud as possible, but it barely made it across the
hundred or so yelling zombies between them. She pointed into the
room, toward the fire. She said something he missed, but he heard her
last words, “—that way!” He gave her a thumbs up,
and the three girls immediately bounded to the tank next to them.

“I guess we're going
that way
.” He was talking
to Victoria, but Dave heard him and shouted down to Travis they were
leaving. Liam held Victoria's hand as they waited for the men to come
out of the tank.

“You ready to go back in?” He wasn't. He hoped she
would counter his misgivings about going back into the meat of the
room they'd just spent time escaping.

She took his other hand and as they stood there in the midst of
the chaos, she started to pray. She said it quietly, almost as if she
was ashamed of the act. When she was done, she explained why.

“I prayed and I wished upon a star and blew out my birthday
candles. I couldn't let you hear my wish or it wouldn't come true.”
She smiled, and Liam couldn't tell if she was serious or joking. In
the end, it didn't matter. They
would
need all the help they
could get.

“Amen,” he said.

As was her way, she took off while he stood there with a dumb look
on his face. He followed her to the next tank, though he turned back
to confirm Travis had indeed come out.

Deeper into the room they went, retracing the steps they'd taken
before the zombies arrived. The men caught up, their rifles slung
over their shoulders.

“Look for Clarence! He has to be here, somewhere.”

Liam hadn't been looking down for a while. He made his jumps, and
ignored everything below. If Clarence was down there, he'd better
show up. And yet, he peeked down once and came to the conclusion if
the man was down there, he was already dead. The spaces between the
tanks was now completely stuffed with zombies dressed like civilians
of all stripes who had made a wrong turn at the fake blood factory.
He forced himself to believe it was fake blood.

They reached the middle of the room. On their right was the main
corridor which Liam labeled the north-south road. The
Valkyrie
was still parked where they'd left it. In front of them was the
east-west road with the railroad tracks. It was about forty feet
across, though on the near corner there was one of the large columns
holding up the ceiling.

While the roadway was far from empty, Liam saw their chance. He
waited for Travis and Dave to reach the last tank, then laid out his
plan. In the back of his head he wondered if he was stating the
obvious, or if it was really a good plan that the others hadn't
considered.

“We have to cross this space. You two help us get across
with your guns, and we'll help you get across with our—”
He suddenly felt very inadequate. The men had powerful rifles, while
he held a little wooden spear. Victoria held an even less beefy piece
of coffin wood.

You go to war with the army you have...

He didn't give anyone a chance to think about it. Each second they
delayed, the more zombies would see them and move in their direction.

He found the first zombie as he hit the rocky ground. He thrust
his spear through its face, then pulled it back out with authority.
The man wore a lime-green light jacket—a fact he found
important at the time. Victoria hit the ground as he stepped a half a
dozen steps toward the middle of the road. A small child was in his
way and he hesitated for half a second before doing the deed.

I hate the Apocalypse.

Victoria surged ahead, taking the next zombie. The shard of wood
she carried went into the flesh of the older woman, but she squealed
at the impact, then moaned as she pulled it out. Without a sideways
glance to him, she yelled, “Splinters!” and kept going.

Travis and Dave used the time to prepare their rifles. Two
near-simultaneous shots rang out, downing two zombies in front of
them.

Liam pushed on, keeping up with Victoria. They each cleared two
more zombies, then they reached the next row of tanks. Victoria
climbed up, but he stood his ground. Someone would have to—

Nope!

There were too many. He wanted to stand in the breech and clear
the gap for the men to cross, but that was impossible. He scrambled
up the tank and found Victoria looking back at the men, motioning for
them to get across.

He was tempted to wave them off, but he knew this was their only
chance. If they were really lucky, they might be able to fight their
way across.

Victoria, perhaps sensing his thoughts, held fast to his arm.

He turned to her. “Not this time. This little spear can't
help. If only they'd given you your gun back.”

It brought him no comfort to know the men had been wrong in taking
it away. No one could trust anyone these days. But in this case, it
cost them.

He stared across the gap, watching as the roadway filled up with
more of the infected. While he wavered between running some more or
yelling something encouraging to the two men, the dead soldiers
walked around the corner. They'd come down the middle of the room,
and now turned down the cross street.

Liam gave the two men a lot of respect. He would be unloading his
rifle right about now, but they were more restrained. “We'll
catch up!” Dave yelled. They waved at Liam as if telling him to
keep going. They ran and jumped along the column of tanks, headed
toward the large vault door at the end. Liam wondered if it would
open for these Patriots. He doubted it.

Victoria pulled him. The order of the day continued to be: run for
your life!

4

They jumped tank after tank, heading in the direction given by the
triplets. He had no idea what they planned to do once they reached
the end of the line, but he was relieved to see they had managed to
cross the wide cross street, just like he and Victoria had done.

They tried to yell out to Clarence, who had to be in one of the
tanks on which they ran, but he didn't pop out. There was no way to
check them all and still outpace the growing horde. Zombies were
everywhere around them, but thickest behind.

And what was ahead? A stone wall with one hole that led to a room
full of desecrated remains and sky lights in the rock ceiling with no
view of the sky.

Still, he searched for the means of escape.

Front door was jammed with the infected. Scratch.