Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (32 page)

She admitted the zombies had allowed some good things to happen.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad that Hayes and his wife got to have a
second chance, too.

“He still can be an ass,” Victoria said with finality.

“Oh, no question there,” Jane said with a chuckle.
“But that ass is going to save the world. I firmly believe that
with all my heart.”

“Don’t trust anyone.” Liam’s voice filled
her mind. “You’re riding in a helicopter with the wife of
the sneakiest man in America. Be careful.”

It didn’t feel like a trap, though she allowed anything was
possible now that she was a prisoner inside the helicopter. She could
fly her anywhere, and there wasn’t anything she could do about
it. She had no weapons. No way to change the flow of the day.

Leaning to the window again, she watched for another thirty
minutes as the chopper cruised over the countryside below. Except for
the odd fire here or there, it was hard to tell anything had changed
with the world. The country was still the country. Just a bunch of
trees, same as before.

It all changed as they approached Cairo. She knew what to expect
in terms of the big pile up of barges along the river, but she had no
idea what to think of the standing room only crowd of zombies in the
fields north of the town.

“Oh my God,” Victoria exclaimed into the mic.

Jane slowed the craft. “Looks like they had a hell of a
fight last night,” she reported.

There were thousands of dead zombie bodies in the field. They’d
been stacked up like dried leaves all along the ditch, and the
waterway was solidly choked with bodies in several places. From high
in the helicopter, it was hard to make out individuals in the crowd,
but the moving mass appeared to flow over the bridges of the dead and
then spread out again like ants from a mound.

“They’re still alive! There!” she shouted,
though it was impossible for Jane to know where she pointed.

Pockets of defenders stood on the big pile of dirt behind the
waterway. It appeared the dead had crossed and then gotten behind the
defenders in several places. The tiny pockets of men and women lunged
at the encroaching zombies when they got too close. But it was an
impossible battle.

The zombies outnumbered them thousands to one.

2

“She’s down there, isn’t she?” Jane asked
plainly.

Victoria had tried to throw them off the scent by pointing to the
nearby town of Wickliffe, Kentucky. It was pretty much across the
river from Cairo, and her plan was to land there and get a sense of
whether this was truly a rescue or something more deadly for Grandma.
She wasn’t going to risk her life until she knew.

But now, seeing the horde of zombies breaking through the defenses
of the town, what choice did she have? Jane flew her over the middle
of Cairo and seemed to slow down as if waiting for the answer.
Victoria studied the landscape below, but couldn’t readily pick
out where she’d left Grandma Marty in her temporary home.

There were no zombies running down the streets of the town, at
least she didn’t see any from up in the sky, but that time was
coming.

“Yes,” she said as she deflated. “But I don’t
remember exactly which house we were in.”

“You have to try,” Jane said, as if it were totally
obvious.

She was on the cusp of picking a place to set the helicopter down
when several plinks rattled off the outside of the copter. Jane
banked hard to her right and made for the edge of town. Two more
clangs—gunfire she realized—followed.

“They're shooting at us?” Victoria’s question
was rhetorical.

They re-crossed the Mississippi and banked for a landing. She
watched a huge dust storm far across the flat Missouri farmland for
the few moments she faced that direction. Soon they touched down in
the treeline across the river from Cairo. Jane explained the
helicopter would be hidden from trigger-happy townsfolk, but would be
close enough they could get back before the town itself collapsed.

“We’re walking?”

“No, we’re running,” Jane said while unhooking
herself from the controls and radio equipment. In moments they both
stood outside the damaged sliding door. With a conspiratorial grin,
Jane removed a small panel which revealed a storage space inside the
hull. She pulled out two black rifles and several magazines each.
Victoria spied another rifle she left behind. It was much larger.

“That’s my baby,” Jane said with the pride of
any new mother. “But she’s too heavy to carry so far.”

Then, pointing at the rifle she’d given to Victoria, she
continued. “You aren’t going to shoot me with that, are
you?” Her smile was soft, but her eyes were rocks.

“No. I can’t say I trust you, but right now we both
want the same thing. To save Grandma from that wall of zombies.”

Jane handed her the magazines. “Keep these handy. We’re
going to need them.” She took off at a jog.

Victoria, looking at the unlocked helicopter, spoke as she ran to
catch up. “Aren’t you worried someone is going to steal
your ride?”

“Eh, what are the odds of the finder being able to fly a
helicopter? We’ll be fine.”

Victoria wasn’t sure. “We’ll be fine” was
code for “I have no idea.” But there was no other choice.
At least they weren’t bullet magnets on the ground.

Things became more chaotic as they crossed the fields on the
Missouri side of the river and reached the narrow, two-lane bridge
which linked their side with Illinois. Several people ran down the
middle of the bridge—away from town. Women and children,
mostly. The children were ushered with yells and screams to keep
moving. Often they were crying madly—young and old kids.

Crossing the old bridge gave them a look below. The brown river
was choked with barges. There were more than she could count. It was
almost possible to walk from one side of the great river to the
other...they were piled up that badly. Cairo had taken capturing the
runaways to a whole new level.

A giant plane came in over the bridge low, and slow. She
recognized it from their many earlier encounters. A V-22 Osprey. It
swooped in above the town then tilted its wings as it
descended—changing from plane mode to helicopter mode. It went
behind some trees in the foreground of her view, so she didn’t
know where it went down. She assumed it was part of the evacuation
effort and was glad to see it.

Distracted by the plane, that’s when she saw a group of
people walking a ramp onto a single barge near the middle of the
river. It was hooked to a lone towboat, like they were preparing to
depart. The people on the move appeared to be elderly, and that was
all she needed.

“There! Those people. We have to check that out.”

Jane, when she saw where she was looking, held out her rifle so
she could look through the scope. After a moment’s worry that
the other woman was going to shoot down at the people, she realized
what she was doing and used her own scope in the same fashion. Sure
enough, they were elderly.

“Why are they walking to that boat?” Jane asked.

“I don’t know. But if they're as old as I think they
are, we have to assume Grandma is down there somewhere. And we have
to hurry!” The people were close to their getaway boat, and no
one appeared to be following them. They’d walked across several
adjoining barges which were lashed together—she had experience
jumping over such boats—and it wouldn’t take them long to
get inside the last one.

“All right. It’s worth a look.”

Dang right, it is.

3

They had no incidents getting over the long bridge, past a group
of men organizing a roadblock at the far end, or getting down to the
floating parking lot of barges. The one they sought was still moored
to the others as they approached. They had weapons drawn.

“What are we going to do if there are guards?”

“What makes you think they’ll have guards?” Jane
asked, with apparent skepticism.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that every time I walk into
one of these situations, someone points a gun in my face? Ringing any
bells?”

“That was one time,” Jane said with an attempt to
lighten the mood.

Victoria was angry but kept it inside. The rifle in her hands was
her insurance card, this time.

“After you,” she motioned to Jane.

The barge was one of the big ones. About two hundred feet long and
fifty across. It was covered by a long series of metallic toppers, so
she couldn’t see what was inside the hold. The elderly people
had gone in on one side, where there were steps. On the far end, the
barge had some tall antennas and a large satellite dish sitting on
the open deck. That was curious enough to warrant checking out the
boat, as no other barge she’d seen had such accoutrements.

Jane didn’t hesitate, though she gripped her rifle tightly,
and held it to her face as she moved closer to the steps to go down
into the hold.

Victoria studied the towboat at the other end. The windows of the
bridge wrapped all the way around the superstructure of that ship, so
the captain could see the entire river, but she couldn’t tell
if anyone was watching them from inside.

I’m sure this is all just a friendly checkup.

The stairs down were made of fresh wood like they’d been
built for this one thing. She followed Jane, who’d gone the ten
or so feet to the bottom. She stepped off so Victoria could stand
next to her.

The people she’d seen earlier stood nearby as a group. They
looked scared and tired. One or two had taken seats against the metal
wall of the hull. The lighting was dim, but white LED lights lined
the floor everywhere she looked.

When they got close to them, they lowered their rifles.

And old man met them as they neared. “We surrender.”
Some chuckles followed from the others. If Liam were here, he’d
criticize them for surrendering. He’d want them all to be
armed, so two girls wouldn’t have the drop on them.

“Sorry, what is this place?”

“Can’t you see? It’s a hospital?” the old
man answered.

Victoria looked again. She’d been so focused on the threat
posed by the unarmed people; she didn’t see the rest of the
interior. It was two hundred linear feet of beds. Each bed had a
light hanging down from above it, though only a few beds had patients
in them.

She and Jane walked around.

“It really is a hospital,” Jane agreed.

They both stared in wonder. Having a hospital out on the river
meant it could go anywhere to provide services. It would be a great
asset to anyone fighting against the zombies who, so far, didn’t
have the ability to swim and board ships like this one.

“Who’s in charge?” There were no nurses or
doctors to answer Jane’s query. Just some sleeping patients and
the group of newcomers. “And how did you know to come here?”
Jane continued.

Victoria looked back, waiting for the answer.

“A young woman told us to get over here straight away. She
said this was part of the official evacuation effort.”

“All of you?” Victoria probed.

The others nodded.

She walked tentatively into the area of beds. There were probably
ten long rows of them. The first patient she could find was also an
elderly woman. Not Grandma. That got her running. Out of all the
beds, maybe ten percent had people in them. The cool hull seemed to
help with temperature, but it was still humid—most patients
were sweating as they lay there.

But, more troubling, was the fact they were all attached to wires
and a type of harness over their heads. They seemed to be out of it.

When she’d run up and down all the rows, she was satisfied
Grandma was not among them. She didn’t know if she was happy or
sad at the realization. These people had to be safer than those in
danger of being overrun by the horde.

She returned to Jane with a question on her face.

“I don’t know what this is. I’ve never seen
anything like it.”

Victoria, pointing over her shoulder, replied, “Actually,
I’ve seen something like it. I, uh...” Her attention was
stolen by movement at the front of the barge.

A black drone had floated down the stairs and hovered silently,
out of the way. Another came in behind it. And a third.

“Friends of yours?” she asked Jane.

The angular machines hovered at the base of the steps, as if
waiting for orders.

“Nope. I have no friends,” she replied with finality.

Marty tried to get out of her chair, but her back was, as Liam
would say, toast. She sat in the darkness of the cozy old home with
her kinda-sorta captor. Debbie didn’t say she was a prisoner,
but she wouldn’t help Marty up so she could leave. It was a
request she refused over and over, until finally she went into the
other room, pulled some bedding and a pillow into the family room,
and went to sleep at Marty’s feet. Now, even if she could pop
out of her chair with the help of magic, she wouldn’t be able
to step over or around Debbie without rousing her.

The saddest part was the girl seemed to be deeply asleep—even
the distinct whining of a tank barreling through the neighborhood
didn’t bring her around. When it came by, Marty believed it had
gone through the backyard, but as the night dragged on she doubted
what she’d heard.

So, she did the only sensible thing for her situation.

“Al, you better talk to me when I fall asleep,” she
whispered.

She woke with the sun high in the morning sky. Rays of sunshine
raked the empty kitchen, reminding her of many pleasant years of
cooking and baking in her home. Who owned this house before the
horrible zombies came here? Was that person still alive, somewhere?

And Al? He never showed up, though she remembered many of her
dreams from the night before. They were “normal” ones,
though, not those induced by Al and his dream-within-a-dream routine.
It wasn’t relief she felt, however, as now she needed him more
than ever. She was alone—Liam and Victoria were still up the
river on their boat—and the general had hinted things were
going to get bad in the town. He didn’t say she should leave,
but that was written between the lines.