Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (7 page)

He tumbled hard, and it knocked the wind out of him.

As he struggled to figure out what was happening, he heard the
footfalls of someone running. Several someones.

Something smacked him on the side of the head…

When he woke up, it was nearly dark. Several propeller-driven
aircraft buzzed above the city, but the cracks of gunfire nearby were
of more concern.

And something burned on the skin of his neck.

I've been bitten!

He put his hand on the painful patch and was relieved and
distraught to feel the familiar shape of a needle. Not a bite. While
he was out, another drone must have hovered by, noticed he was still
alive, and tagged him. For termination.

Getting to his knees took some effort. His head spun, and he felt
as if he'd been kicked in more places than just his head.

He'd been relieved of everything. He'd been attacked by thieves
this time. No rapists, murderers, or cannibals. In the hierarchy of
evil, he figured he'd gotten off lightly.

It took him a few minutes to collect his thoughts, then snake his
way to the nearby derelict car. The metal hulk would give him a piece
of safety from which to consider what to do next. Part of him wanted
to find a place to spend the night, but an angry part of him wanted
to continue his run—no matter what. Victoria was still only an
hour away.

And each second I waste out here, the more danger she's in.

That probably wasn't true. Deep down he knew she was as safe as
anyone could be in the city. She was probably eating more cookies in
her dorm room, wondering when he'd be back. If all had gone to plan,
he assumed he'd have been back well before dinnertime. Now the sun
was almost down.

Gunfire.

He also heard the familiar beeps of the droid tank. It was backing
up, somewhere nearby.

The ground shook beneath him. A powerful explosion had gone off,
to the north. A few seconds later he felt a dull shockwave of air.

The high-rises of St. Louis were many blocks behind him. The city
was too small to have many, in the first place. He was now in a
less-crowded section of the city with two- and three-story buildings
along the street. Ahead he could see what appeared to be a larger
seven- or eight-story hotel. Beyond that, more of the same stretched
westward until he'd reach the much taller row of hospitals that lined
the eastern edge Forest Park. He couldn't see them yet, however,
because he was looking up a large hill. The street would take him up
the hill that in a previous life had given his dad fits when he ran
marathons in this town.

I can do this.

His fingertips felt the soothing cool of the car. Then they pushed
him off into the sunset run.

2

Unencumbered with anything besides his shoes and jeans, he felt
light and fleet. It was disappointing to lose another of his dad's
guns—he lost “Moses” two weeks ago—but he
didn't have that far to go, and despite his emotional and physical
exhaustion, he felt good enough at the moment to assure himself he
could make the jog to Victoria.

In a couple of blocks, he started to see some zombies on the
ground. Shot in the head with a high-powered gun, just like he'd seen
done by the drone tank. If he took the time to search the corpses, he
was sure there were little arrows stuck to them.

More planes flew overhead. They conducted a ballet in the sky much
as they had done many weeks ago above the Arch. Somewhere, out in the
city, he imagined Jason and his Tiger tank driving frantically to
avoid the ire of those birds above. His mom made the best decision
possible when she abandoned the tank inside the lobby of the
skyscraper. Until the planes were gone, tanks were more or less
useless.

His mind drifted as he ran, though he shook his head roughly to
try to keep himself focused on all the dangers around him.

Zombies, for starters.

Emotionless drones, for a second helping of fun.

Random falling bombs, for dessert.

And that didn't include the things he couldn't predict, like dog
cages full of captive zombies.

Block after block passed by. He struggled up the urban hill and
took in the view on the other side. The sunset was a brilliant orange
and pink and was much more vivid than any sunset he could recall
seeing in his life.

The world is on fire, and it looks beautiful.

Someone fired a gun—close by—interrupting his
appreciation of the sky. The pavement snapped near his feet.

“Die you zombie scum!”

He had no time to argue. He sprinted toward the other side of the
street doing the zigs and zags he'd seen a million times on TV.

Another shot chased him.

“That's right you little shit, run and hide. We're gonna get
ya,” a deep male voice called out.

With no choices, he ran between two buildings. If the shooter was
directly behind him, he'd be an easy target with no way to jink
side-to-side. Another shot did follow, but he heard no ricochets or
whizzing, so he began to think he had a chance. As he approached an
eight-foot chain link fence blocking the alley, he sprang to the top,
more or less carefully climbed over the top, and dropped to the far
side. In two more seconds he had the corner of the building between
himself and the bullets.

His breathing was heavy, forcing him to lean over to catch his
breath.

This is where they get you. A million books on zombies say this
is it.

What he didn't know was whether he would be shot for looking like
a zombie—his upper torso was still covered with the dried blood
of the dog cage zombies—or would be killed by a zombie for
looking edible. The mosquitoes of July swarmed him, adding the final
insult.

He was in an empty parking lot behind another brick building. A
law firm name graced the one intact window on the entryway to the
little office; papers were strewn about inside, and some had been
tossed out the door, too.

Not knowing what else to do, he went inside. In the failing light,
he could view the reception area with no problem, but a pair of
hallways led away into the darkness.

The place had been ransacked, as he expected, but he was sure
there had to be something he could use as a weapon. The reception
desk was a coven of destruction, but he did find a sharp pair of
scissors.

Better than my fists.

Feeling the smallest bit more self-assured, he tried to get deeper
into the place. The nearest hallway turned out to be the restrooms.
Nothing useful would be there; he didn't even have to go.

The other hallway went to the offices, and he intended to try the
nearest when he remembered a zombie movie where something like this
came up.

“Hey, any of you jerks hiding in here?” He said it
loud enough to be heard in the hallway and attached offices.

The seconds counted by. He was beginning to think the coast was
going to be clear, but the ugly moan of a zombie started from
somewhere at the end of the hallway.

Then a soft pounding on a door, like someone with mittens was
hitting it.

A minute went by with the same constant sound before he was
willing to chance walking into the hall. Much like his earlier
experience up in the Arch, it was sometimes safer to go with the
direction where you know there was a zombie, than the one where you
aren't sure. If the zombie wasn't on him already, it might be stuck
behind a door.

The first office had an open door. Like the front of the
establishment, everything had been tossed carelessly within the room.
Even the desk had been put on its side. The computer looked new and
fancy, and very broken. The only thing that was remotely of use was a
coat rack with a suit jacket tangled up in its arms. Everything was
on the floor, but he got busy unhooking the jacket and put it on. It
was very tight, and he was almost ready to take it back off, but he
figured it would be better than nothing right now. To be mistaken for
a bloody zombie would be far worse than an ill-fitting suit coat.

I don't even know how to tie a tie.

Fortunately, there wasn't a tie.

The coat rack almost had the right length and heft to fashion a
crude spear, but he quickly deduced it would be way too heavy. That
got him thinking, though, and he searched the room for alternatives.

He settled on a stout wooden chair that probably had been used by
clients anxious to sue for luxuries of the Old World. It took him
three tries to swing the chair over his head and break it. When he
finally managed that feat, he pulled out a leg. It felt about right,
but it wouldn't make a very good spear. It still had some of the seat
attached. It did make a fair club he could swing.

The scissors went into his pants pocket, then he picked up the
club and swung it around the room to test it. He discounted his prior
failures of swinging weapons and made himself believe this time would
be different.

He walked back out into the night, with mismatched clothes and
weapons.

“I'm coming home, Victoria,” he said with quiet
certainty.

He ran some more.

3

Each building on the avenue had a small parking lot behind it,
complete with dumpsters, abandoned cars, and the occasional zombie.
Things were spread out so he could see what was coming up. That's how
he saw the helicopter drone emerge from a building up ahead and shoot
a tag at a couple of zombies loitering nearby.

Then it vectored for him.

Once more, he turned to the left. He ran to an abandoned pickup
truck and slid underneath.

He listened for the drone to arrive. Gunshots were constant,
though most of them were far away.

I need someone to shoot this drone.

The whirl of the blades sent air under the truck. The drone was
somewhere above. He moved as far to the other side of the
undercarriage as he dared. In the twilight, he expected to see the
flash of aircraft lights, but the drone didn't seem to need them.

The wind shifted, and he sensed the drone was on the move. He
returned to the center of the truck, waiting for what he'd need to do
next. His club was useless. The scissors were a joke.

After a few moments, he felt the air blowing up through the legs
of his jeans. He angled his head so he could see behind the truck,
and the drone had nearly landed on the pavement behind him. A small
tube on its underside pointed at him.

“Oh, crap!”

He slid out the left side, pushing his club with him. The machine
lifted off, and he felt it get close to him as he crouch-ran to the
front of the truck. The old Ford was in the middle of an empty lot.
He had nowhere to go.

Maybe I could get inside the cab?

Before he could finish his thought, the drone jumped upward so it
was on top of the cab, about ten feet off the ground. The little gun
tube swiveled to him.

Almost without planning it, he hefted the wooden club and let it
go toward the copter. It impacted the underside of the rotors with a
loud crack. Pieces of wood flew back at him, and the drone tipped
backward. He ducked himself down to the front bumper, worried it
would tip over on top of him and catch him with one of the deadly
blades. That would be a horrible way to die.

The truck lurched as the drone banged loudly in the bed of the
truck. The blades weren't stopping, but they clanged over and over on
the metal.

Rather than gawk at it, he ran.

As he rounded the corner of a building onto the next street over,
he heard the drone begin to emit a high-pitched siren. It sounded a
lot like a cry for help. He found a dark nook and squatted down to
catch his breath, again—needing the break. The sprinting was
more than he could handle.

While he waited, another drone flew by. It came from across the
street and passed near enough he felt the wash of its blades. It went
in the direction of its fallen friend.

“Feet, I need you,” he whispered.

There were no other—obvious—threats on the street, so
he got back to it. Now he was without his chair-club. He only had
what jiggled in his pocket.

I'm breaking the cardinal rule of life: running with scissors!

He giggled to himself and enjoyed the distraction as he notched
another couple of blocks. That's when he tripped—again.

This time, it was more of a slip. He saw dirt or something on the
street, but the low light was tricky. He didn't count on
banana-peeling the underlying layer of fluid. He was back on his feet
in a flash, pants soaked in god-knows-what, looking for the
inevitable attacker, like the previous trap.

But nothing came at him.

The debris on the ground was horrifying. And he'd seen something
like it before. Two wide swathes of crushed bodies lay upon the
ground, from one side of the street to the other. The Tiger tanks
made the same horrific tracks when they crushed all the zombies
between the warehouses earlier that day. But these tracks looked to
be weeks old. They'd intermingled with dust, trash, and foliage. But
here and there he could watch a lone hand move or the remains of a
head with an ever-moving mouth. Where there were no bodies, such as
where he slipped, the tanks had left slick tracks of blood and other
gore. Crushed and compacted.

He tuned it out.

This isn't happening!

His stomach rebelled, but he didn't throw up. He ignored that he'd
slipped on the effluence of the remains of things that had been
pulverized days or weeks ago by heavy-treaded army tanks.

The scissors mocked him from his pocket. He was carrying a useless
weapon in a world where rocket-propelled grenades were the order of
the day.

Where the tank had gone was not his concern.

Whose side it was on was not his concern.

His concern was ahead. He stepped over the tracks and picked up
the pace.

Running at night wasn't his thing.