Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (11 page)

“Some people will do
anything
. Absolutely anything.
To get more drugs. And that doesn't include most of the people who
died outright when they ran out of lifesaving medicines. Some of
those people will still be out there, too. They need medicine every
day, just to stay alive. What do you think they'd be willing to do to
secure a few extra days of existence?”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” he said with sureness. “And until we
all have our own stone huts, and our own source of reliable food to
go with them, shooting the odd zombie is going to be the easy part.
Knowing who to trust from your fellow man. That's going to be the
part that requires real vigilance.”

Again, the concept of building a good group of people around him
seemed to come to the fore. He and Victoria were the core; he was
sure of that. He wished he could get his mom back, without her
baggage of being important. Everyone else he'd hoped would join his
team had either died or gone missing. He was a survival molecule
consisting of exactly one atom. “Team Liam,” as he'd once
described his survival group, needed to be rebuilt from the ground
up.

Time to go find my other half.

"I've got to go."

Randolph shook his hand.

"Go get her, kid. Live a long life. Do it for old Randolph,"
he said with a cheeky smile.

"I will."

5

Liam continued his journey for another couple of blocks, but being
inside the cordon around the park made the jog pleasant. After a few
minutes, he reached the last street between concrete and grass. He'd
almost gone full circle. He studied where he was. He entered the park
midway between Victoria's dorm and Hans' house. He desperately wanted
to run directly to Victoria's dorm room—where he hoped she'd
be—but he had a couple of stops he needed to make. With people
ahead, he tucked the shotgun into his suit jacket sleeve.

First, he ran to a nearby creek in the park. The water wasn't
deep, nor particularly clear, but he wanted the blood off. He
stripped down to his black boxers and walked in with his sneakers on.
If the people nearby cared, they didn't voice any objections. For all
he knew, the creek was for clean drinking water. He hoped not, since
he was turning it practically red in his little pool.

He got out and air dried for a few minutes, content to rest on the
grass. The creek was in an area of the park with relatively few
people compared to elsewhere. Several black families had congregated
together on a nearby hillside, while many more white families huddled
downstream, on the other side of the creek.

Is this how it's always going to be?

To be fair, it could have been coincidence. He'd heard of racism,
and had interacted with several different races of people on his
journeys, but had never seen it in real life. His dad gave a passing
mention to race when he was teaching him how to drive to Grandma's
house in the city, but he couldn't recall the specifics of it.

When he thought he was dry enough, he pulled on his jeans. He
ended up walking those back into the creek, since they were covered
in gore, too. When he was done, only his empty shotgun and the jacket
were dry.

Good enough. I'm outta here.

“Hey, guy. Don't go that way.”

The voice came from behind him. A greasy-looking young man, not
much older than him, strode up. His red hair perched on top of his
high forehead. His clothes were torn and dirty like he'd started the
Apocalypse by visiting the charity bins for his attire.

“You want to stay away from
them
,” he nodded
menacingly to the black families on the low hill. They were between
him and his destination.

“Um, why is that?”

He cackled. “You nuts? They caused this disease. You touch
them. You die.”

He was positively sure that was false, but not surprised rumors
like that existed. The man didn't look like he was in the mood for
debate.

“Oh, thanks.” He started to walk off.

“Hey now. Just a minute. There's a fee for good advice.”

Liam knew how this was going to go down. In one explosive action,
he launched into a sprint. He aimed for a nearby group of
people—color was unimportant—and had to excuse himself as
he deflected off the arm of a standing woman. There was another creek
behind them, so he had to readjust to his right, toward another group
of campers a couple of dozen yards away.

The young guy was in pursuit, and though Liam seemed to have
surprised him initially, he was taller, and by appearances, faster,
than him. He was also cutting off some of the gap by angling toward
where Liam was running.

To compensate, Liam turned and jumped into the creek. It was
actually hip-deep there, so it took him many seconds to get across.
He heard a splash behind as he got up to speed on the far side.
Frantic for somewhere to go, he searched for a police car or other
sign of authority.

I could use the scissors on him.

He laughed inwardly. Scissors would be more effective on a living
person than a zombie, but it would be a weapon of very last resort.
He'd long since lost the ability to get the drop on the guy.

There were a lot of people now, sitting and standing in small
groups within the park, and many were angry at him for running
through their space. The only consolation was complaints from those
same people when the greasy guy went through.

Inspiration struck. He turned right, heading north.

His only real scare came when a burly guy tried to grab him. He
figured a casual observer might think he was running from the law—or
what passed for it in the park—and had tried to make a
citizen's arrest. The guy managed to get a hand on his jacket, but he
spun and let it slide off. It took real skill to keep the shotgun in
his hands while he pulled that maneuver, but he managed. When the man
saw the gun, he put up his own hands in a “Sorry, bro”
gesture. Liam let the jacket drop.

Finally, he ran up the small hill he'd seen while taking his bath.
As expected, the young fellow refused to pursue him, and instead
stayed well behind while flinging insulting names and dire warnings
about their next meeting.

He felt bad for using the black people as his shield, and he hoped
his actions wouldn't get them in trouble in some way, so he kept
running through their area, though with more care so as not to stir
any resentments. If he managed to piss them off, he'd be out of
places to run for help.

All I want is to find Victoria. Is that too much to ask?

6

Next, he stopped at Hans Grubmeyer's mansion to get ammo for his
street sweeper. By an agreement between the old man and the Patriot
Snowball movement, he'd consented to let them—

Am I “them”?

—use the supplies in his home in exchange for allowing him
to call his people to deliver the Tiger tanks to him. Something they
never did...

He decided to go in through the back door. Unsure if it would
attract attention to himself, it seemed the stealthiest way to enter.
The threat of the greasy runner kept him in the proverbial shadows.

Plus, he realized all the ammo was stacked on the back porch. He
searched the pallets of boxes until he found a huge tower of shotgun
shells. With much effort, he tore the wrapping and a paper box so he
could grab a few shells. The first two went in his gun; the rest he
stuffed in his jeans pockets until they bulged like chipmunk cheeks.

He walked in through the back door, expecting to find one of the
Polar Bears. They were supposed to be guarding the place.

“Hello?” he called. Then, thinking he was being funny,
he continued, “Honey, I'm back from the Zombie Apocalypse.”
If Victoria was here, he wanted her to hear the funny Liam she'd been
missing.

He wanted to hear her laughter.

The hallways were exactly as he remembered them. Despite the size
of the mansion, the walking paths were narrow crevices because boxes
of supplies were stacked to the ceiling everywhere there was floor
space. All paths led to the front room.

He saw the foot on the ground and cradled his shotgun. A quick
look behind him—for an ambush—showed nothing. The foot
faced down, like someone was dead on the floor. Already committed,
and having announced himself loudly, he continued to look around the
corner so he could see into the main room.

Bodies were everywhere.

Oh God.

The two Polar Bears he'd met before he'd left were dead. They'd
been pushed to one side of the room, but the nasty black pool of
blood beneath them suggested they'd been dead for a while.

There were several of the infantry-ninja characters he associated
with the NIS. He was surprised to realize he recognized them. One was
the bodybuilder woman he'd seen the previous morning when they first
got to the tanks. The other was Cliff Hammerich. He appeared to be
dead as he sat up against a bunch of wooden crates, but he held a
large wooden box over his outstretched legs.

Liam was going to investigate when he saw a light-colored
long-sleeved shirt hanging on the back of a folding chair. In a room
full of military equipment and dead soldiers, it stood out like a
flare in the darkness.

Cautiously, he crossed the living room until he could reach for
the shirt. He held it to his face and took a deep breath. In that
instant, he knew who's it was. Was she dead in this house, or had she
gotten out?

The shotgun felt great in his hands. It was a pretty good weapon
for sneaking around the tight spaces of the mansion. He eyed the
various hallways out of the room, wondering if there was an
intelligent way to conduct a search. While looking down the left
hallway, his eyes fell once more to the box on Cliff's lap. It seemed
to call out to be opened.

“What were you trying to protect?” he quietly asked.

It was about the size of a breadbox. He gently lifted the lid. A
white piece of paper sat on a bunch of rags.

“Dear Elsa. You lose.”

It meant nothing to him, so he gingerly pulled the towels and
cloth rags out of the box. He didn't know what to expect, but the
digital readout of numbers counting down was among the last.

“15...14...”

He sprang up, suddenly doubting which way he should run.

Go back where I know it's safe, or go out the front?

He decided to try the front door. It was locked. It wasn't just
locked, he realized, it had been boarded shut.

Use the window!

Hans had shot through the open window when they first met. He knew
it was big enough to escape through. But someone had placed a wire
mesh over the windows and screwed the wire to the wall.

“Oh, shit!” he blurted.

The whole place had been made into a fortress.

Unsure how many seconds he had left, he took off for the rear of
the house. He spared one second to grab Victoria's shirt on his way
out.

His Zombie Apocalypse danger meter was pegged in the red zone. But
while escaping an exploding house was the first mission, he also
couldn't help think about falling and hurting his ankle. Once again,
even something as innocuous as a sprained ankle could get him killed.
He lost a second or two because of his extra care, but he whizzed by
the porch full of ammo—the danger meter found a few extra
bars—and headed straight into the palatial backyard.

His goal was a lone ancient pine tree in the middle of the grassy
landscape. Fifty feet away.

He was halfway there when the first explosion rocked the house.

Keep going!

A second later a second tremor shook the ground. Each moment he
expected a great fireball would reach out and smother him in death.

Two more blasts, and this time he sensed the heat, though it
sounded like the explosions were still inside the house.

He was feet from the tree when he finally got what he expected. A
massive explosion ripped out the back of the house and he felt a hot
barbecue grill blast of heat on his bare back.

He jumped for the safety of the tree.

His only thought was whether Victoria was burning inside.

Liam woke up against the protective barrier of the gigantic pine
tree. He'd found the only cover in the entire yard he could reach
before the house exploded, and it saved him.

Thank you, Mr. Lodgepole Pine.

A prayer of thanks to God was on the tip of his tongue when a man
in a military uniform popped through the shrubs near the back of the
large yard. A black battle rifle pointed menacingly in his direction.
Liam's sad-looking shotgun lay in the grass a few feet away. He'd let
go of that, but had held Victoria's shirt during the explosion and
subsequent cook off of all the ammo—a show which continued even
now.

Six more soldiers appeared. He recognized the whir of a small
drone hovering nearby, though they kept it out of sight. The men kept
their distance from the house fire. Most took a knee, but one man
jogged through their line and covered the distance to him. He kept
the tree between himself and the fire.

Liam was too surprised to say anything as the man approached.

The Marine was far less jovial than their last meeting. Weeks ago,
back at Camp Hope, Liam and Victoria had “escaped” into
the woods, rather than help the military.

“Mr. Peters,” he said with maximum hostility.

Over the days and weeks of the disaster, he'd had his run-ins with
the United States Marine Corps, and he'd discussed it endlessly in
the down times with Mel, Phil, and his father. One thing that had
come up was the proper battle cry. It was different for each branch
of the military. He had no defense for what he'd done, so he was left
with falling on his sword.

“Oorah, sir.”

“Don't give me shit, son.” Lt. Colonel Joseph
Brandyweis strode next to him and looked around the trunk of the
great tree so he could see the ruins of the mansion. He whistled. “I
knew you were trouble. I just knew it. You teenagers are nothing
but.” He turned back to Liam. “The world is burning in
disease, and my task is hunting down a snot-nosed punk kid who seems
to be at the scene of every big fire—and here you are causing
the damned things. Is this all you've been doing?”