Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (10 page)

A few snorts from the others.

He scanned the dozen or so people and thought, perhaps unfairly,
they didn't seem quite as starved and weak as the others. Like they
fed on evil, rather than food. The weapon slung over his shoulder
tugged at him; a reminder.

The last of the others up the trail were in danger of leaving his
view. It had to be his imagination, but the strange feeling of
darkness hung over him. He didn't want to be left alone with the
woman, though she made no motions of overt hostility. As he watched,
they seemed to relax and return to normalcy. Maybe his mind wasn't so
fresh, after all.

They want me gone, though. I feel it.

“OK then, good luck with that.”

He couldn't help trotting away. If he could have run without
looking panicked, he would have done so. It only took several seconds
to catch up to the man at the end of the walking line. Far from being
left behind, the person—indeed the whole line—had already
stopped.

He removed his rifle from his back, just to be prepared.

The group remaining behind was now barely visible through the
dense foliage of the forest floor. He could see the shirts and backs
of the heads of several, but was disappointed he was in the perfect
spot to see the face of the old woman. She watched him just as he
watched her.

And she still looked...evil.

“Liam!” He startled and would have dropped his rifle
if the sling wasn't wrapped around his hand.

“Oh my God, Victoria, I almost pissed myself.”

“Obviously. What are you doing back here, scaring yourself?”
She laughed with the same good humor they'd shared earlier.

“I'm supposed to tell you we've stopped.” She giggled
some more.

Liam resisted a look over his shoulder. He recalled a Bible story
of a woman turning to salt for looking back. His eyes were glued to
Victoria, though not for any romantic reason. She was his foundation
in the chaos. She would pull him up the trail, and out of the
self-spook zone he was trapped in.

Victoria, suffering no such self-doubts that he could see, looked
back down trail. She must have caught sight of the old woman because
she waved in her direction.

“Those people are the idiots staying, huh?”

“Yes,” he said with a newfound finality. “Those
are the idiots hoping to be rescued by someone three states away.”

“Good luck then.” She laughed and started back up the
trail, stepping around the tired-looking survivors waiting for the
group to start moving again. She began to jog as the line did start
to move.

He watched her as long as he could, until he too moved up the
trail.

5

The plan was to walk around the pit mine, up the railroad tracks
along the river for a couple miles, then follow a large floodway
system into mid-town St. Louis. They'd made it beyond the mine—he'd
passed it for the third time since the sirens, happy as could be they
weren't going down there again—and were walking the train
tracks next to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery before Victoria
came back to him.

“Hey, this is where we came out of the cemetery, right?”

Liam looked around. He thought it was, but he wasn't right in the
head when they emerged from that grave. The nod he gave her was more
for show.

Somewhere over the nearby hill was a military grave with a deep
shaft leading down to a huge cavern full of zombies. Those zombies
might still be looking up at the tiny gap of light seeping through
the hole Liam and Victoria used to crawl out. Or, a nearby hole used
by the triplets.

“Do you think Blue, Pink, and Black are out there,
somewhere?”

Victoria sidled up to him. There was plenty of room to walk along
the wide railroad tracks. Even the zombies seemed thinner here, a
fact Liam attributed to the lack of food in the nearby cemetery.

“They have to be somewhere, right. They came out of the
grave, same as us.”

That part was true. Liam assumed they ran away because he and his
father represented “the enemy.” They believed the Patriot
Snowball was the instrument of the world's destruction, just as they
were told by “the authorities.” The bureaucrats would do
everything in their power to cover up the truth if they were the ones
who let the virus go. Since the only media left were the ones
directly operated by the remnants of the government, what else would
a person expect them to say?

But his mind was in rapid-fire conspiracy mode. It seemed to get
that way the more desperate their situation became.

“What if they went back
in
the grave?” He said
it slowly, like he was thinking the thought and pronouncing it at the
same time.

Why didn't I think of that while we were there?

Because it's the musing of a crazy person.

He felt his mind argue the details, but there was no reason to
throw it out without consideration.

Victoria walked along, her foot crunching on the heavy trap rock
supporting the railroad ties. He knew she was thinking. Probably
considering whether he'd finally gotten to the point where he'd be
asked to put on the mental diapers.

“What if. What if they made the hole on the surface, but
were somehow pulled back into the hole. Or fell back into the hole.
The first one fell and the others went back down to help her?”

She had managed to think of something even worse than him.

“OK, so you and I crawled out of our hole and walked away
from theirs without even checking to see if they were still down
there. I wonder...” He stopped and looked toward the cemetery.
Suddenly it seemed very important to establish if they were near that
dark hole.

“No, Liam, you can't. If they were still down there—and
I don't think they were—they wouldn't be there this many days
later. We have to believe they made it out. I really don't think they
reached the surface and fell back in, nor do I really consider it
likely they reached the surface and then decided it was smart to jump
back in. Those girls were weird, but they were pretty smart, too.”

It was far fetched. Even he could admit that. But they were so
odd, he could almost believe they'd go back in.

He walked forward again, and grabbed her hand tightly. “I
don't know what made me think that. I think I've been spooked one
time too many, or something.”

“You're distracted by your dad. Having your mom around. It's
understandable.”

Gunfire from up ahead.

They'd seen very few zombies so far. Liam was beginning to wonder
if they'd all cleared out of town. But there were still some here and
there. The town wasn't abandoned by the zombie army.

“I better get back to the middle. These people we're with
are a lot like zombies. They just walk until you tell them to stop.
If you don't—bang! Right into the drink.” She smiled at
her joke, obviously trying to cheer him.

“I'll see you soon, sweetie,” she chimed as she turned
and ran.

She called me sweetie.

He felt the smile on his face as he walked behind the trailing
members of the group. As the cemetery fell behind, and they
approached a large, low, warehouse nestled below the cliff along the
river, he saw a number of zombies emerge from the inside.

Even from a distance he noted the zombies were dressed in military
uniforms. Not the simple BDUs of men and women in combat, but the
formal dress uniforms used for ceremonial duties. Events like dances,
award's ceremonies, and…burials.

The warehouse sat next to the cemetery. Its function was obvious.
It was how fallen soldiers arrived to be processed. And a group of
walking humans was just the thing to rouse them.

Gunfire escalated as Liam got his own rifle ready.

6

Shooting zombies was easy, under the right conditions. Liam had
taken a spot along the railroad tracks where he could lay on the
rocks, put his rifle on the rail, and squeeze away. He'd gotten
pretty good at using the AK, and the red dot scope on his dad's rifle
was secure and true.

But, like all battles, this one had to end. The problem for the
group of survivors was the zombies weren't letting up, no matter how
many they put down. They were only twenty five yards from the
warehouse, and though it was large, he didn't believe the whole thing
could be full. And even if it was full, they had to be reaching the
last few zombies stuffed inside.

He had gone through half his ammo—he carried four 30-round
magazines. Each time he put down one of the already-dead soldiers, he
felt remorse. Something about shooting “friendly”
soldiers felt wrong on a subconscious level.

Yeah, and shooting civilian zombies feels right!

Most of the survivors had guns. Looking up the line he saw every
type and style of firearms. Handguns, both semi-autos and revolvers.
Numerous shotguns. All types of rifles from ancient Mosen's to modern
AR-patterns. It made him feel a deep pride in his fellow man—they
were working together to protect each other on this nondescript piece
of track.

When he stood up, he could see the front of the line a hundred
yards ahead. The decision was easy. He ran. He'd made it twenty feet
when he saw a zombie in the water pawing its way toward shore. The
second shot managed to find the head and the swimmer sank below the
surface. The column was potentially in danger from two directions
now.

He picked up the pace.

On the way, he passed Victoria. She crouched behind the railroad
embankment, tending a young woman who had been shot in the hip. A
revolver lay nearby. He had no time for questions. He smiled at
Victoria as he sped up to reach Jason and the leaders of the
procession.

“Jason! We have to move forward.” He yelled it at him,
but hoped others would hear it as well.

“We know, kid. There's a big group of infected around the
next bend. My scouts are looking for another way past them.”

That made perfect sense.

“We're running out of ammo back there. The zombies are also
coming out of the water.”

That didn't seem to surprise him, but Jason put his hand on his
hips as if thinking. His eyes darted over all parts of the battle,
including the water.

Liam stepped closer. He didn't know if Jason was one of
those
guys
, but he knew adults sometimes didn't like getting
suggestions from “kids,” like him. “I used to run
with my track team on a trail nearby. You go up into the park,”
he pointed away from the warehouse, up into some nearby woods, “and
it will get us out of here.”

“Where does it go?”

Liam wracked his brain. The trail meandered through Jefferson
Barracks Park, a big suburban parkland that bordered the cemetery.
There was a bridge that carried the walking and bicycle trail over
the railroad tracks further down the line. He was pretty sure it
would get them past the blockage of zombies. He explained it to Jason
and he immediately pushed his team in the direction Liam had
indicated.

For his part, he started for his station at the back of the line,
but Jason caught him.

“Hey, no. You need to be up front. Show us where to go.”

He looked down at his feet, comforted he still had on his running
shoes, though not his best pair. “OK. Follow me.” He took
off into the woods, sure he'd recognize something once he got into
the main part of the park.

In sixty seconds Liam paused at a paved bike trail. He assumed it
was the one he sought.

“This is—”

No one was behind him. He ran so fast he dropped all his
followers. So he ran back through the woods until he found the lead
elements of the survivors. They were as surprised as he was when he
found them.

“This way!”

The second time he ran a lot slower. The tired people followed,
and the path through the woods was getting trampled into place. He
hoped Victoria and those in the back would manage to follow.

When he got them to the trail he pointed in the direction they
should go. No one waited for extra incentive, they took to the path
and ran.

For a moment he stared into the dense undergrowth along the path
in the other direction—back toward the cemetery. He could see
the neat rows of white headstones in the distance. A whiff of
something came and went.

Feet, don't fail me.

He watched for a moment as more people came out of the woods and
turned onto the assigned trail, then he took off to try to catch the
front. Gunfire chattered behind as, he supposed, the trailing people
worked to detach themselves from the pursuing zombie soldiers.

The howl of a zombie came from the woods. It was the haunting call
he'd heard down in the pit mine. The “call to arms”
zombie.

You need to think of a better name, in your free time.

He was at the front of the line again before he let himself relax.
Based on the time, he figured it was about a mile along the bike path
from where they came in, to the point where it met the pedestrian
bridge over the railroad tracks. From there it would merge with
another bike path and they'd be heading into the city. But now…

Everyone halted at the edge of the bridge. Someone motioned for
him to be quiet as he approached.

This can't be good.

“General, I'm going to explain this one more time so we're
on the same page, here.”

Ms. Cantwell had spent fifteen minutes complaining about every
detail of his organization and deployment of his forces and only his
strict adherence to the chain of command prevented him from saying or
doing
something he might regret.

“I don't want your tanks and jeeps and men up on the
interstate. I want them
here
. On
my
wall.”

He must have looked like he was going to—once more—explain
why that was a bad idea, because she continued before he got his
mouth open.