Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (16 page)

“Well, they have our pictures and our names...” He
tried to unravel his own excuse.

“Liam.” She looked directly into his eyes. “You
did good. I think it's kind of cute you'd think of that, rather than
make me your sister. Imagine the horror of the doc if she saw us
doing this—”

She gave him one of her patented heavenly-but-short kisses, then
grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

“Of course, you know, it's just pretend. Right? You're going
to have to court me properly if you want my hand in marriage.”
She squeezed his hand with hers, as if to emphasize the point.

They were walking toward more trouble, but he felt infinitely
better than he had moments before. When they caught up to the two
women, he was positively bubbly.

Doctor Yu, seeing them come alongside her, and how happy Liam was,
made an apparent medical diagnosis. “Wow, you two newlyweds
don't fit in this place at all. Maybe I should get married.”
She laughed, though it was tempered by the many sad-looking people
around them.

That finally deflated his own buoyancy.

“You can't appreciate this place until you're up in the
tower. It's huge.”

“How are all these people surviving? Who's feeding them?
Protecting them?”

“You mean protecting
us
. All this is protected by an
outer defense ring of barriers, armed citizens, and police around the
park to keep the sick from making it in and spreading the infection.”

“What about the inside? Are there no infections from inside
the camp?”

“That's why we have the medical stations in those tents.
Anyone who gets sick, or comes into the camp like you did, gets
placed in those tents for observation.”

That gave Liam pause. He understood there was the potential for
patients to exhibit symptoms in that tent—he'd seen the
restraints. But the infection could be fast. He'd seen it take less
than a minute from end to end, bite to raving-mad zombie. If that had
happened in the tent…

“And what if we had turned into zombies? How would you have
stopped us?”

Doctor Yu displayed no emotion as she lifted her shirt just high
enough to show him her waist. There, tucked in nice and neat, was a
small pistol. “This is one of my new surgical instruments.”

He was glad to have felt such exuberance when he left the tent
with Victoria. By the time they reached the entrance to the hospital,
it had completely dissipated.

4

“You'll have to leave your weapons at the front desk.”

The three of them must have shared a look of distrust.

“Don't worry. There are guards on every floor, and many
doctors with guns. But we've found that people coming in from the
outside...they can be very, um, how can I say this politely? Jumpy.”

It rang true to Liam. Besides, his AK-47 was empty. He pulled it
off his shoulder and placed it in a large gray bin, along with his
two remaining empty magazines. Lana and Victoria did the same. He
couldn't remember if either of them had handguns, but if they did,
they made no motion to surrender them.

When that was complete, Doctor Yu paced them to the waiting
elevator.

“You have power here?”

“Yes, limited power. This facility has a coal-fired
power-generating station. It's old, but it works. Saves us a lot of
calorie expenditures climbing stairs.” She laughed as she
pressed the button and the doors closed.

The soothing music betrayed the seriousness of his life at that
moment. The clean elevator car offered a step back into the Old
World. Going to the hospital was never a pleasant experience, but
he'd give anything to be visiting a friend who had an appendix
removed, rather than having to step back out into this world being
gnawed apart by the zombie plague.

With a ding, they reached the twentieth floor. When the doors
opened they were greeted by two men dressed in Army BDUs. They'd been
looking out the large windows, but turned as they exited the
elevator.

Doctor Yu waved, and Liam mimicked her, trying to be friendly. The
men gave a nod, then gave his mom and Victoria a look, but seemed to
lose interest quickly. As they walked down the hall he chanced a look
back under the pretense of looking at some wall art, and saw both men
had reoriented on them as they departed…

Is that normal behavior, or Zombie Apocalypse behavior?

He was trying to solve that riddle when the doctor pulled them to
a stop. She indicated they should look out the window. Below them, he
could see the full length and width of the park. Every piece of open
greenery was taken up by camping people, though most were in the area
of the golf courses and ball fields, where it was flat.

“The park is two miles long and one wide. Everyone who's
still alive in the city is probably here.” She sounded sad,
despite the good news.

“How long can this go on?” He muttered to himself. It
was a lament, more than anything, because he knew it could not.

“The city of St. Louis had stockpiles of food and water for
civil emergencies—tornadoes, earthquakes, that sort of thing.
The city officials have kept it coming. People who live nearby
usually come with as much food as they could take from their homes.”

“Bring it with them? If they had food, why would they leave
their homes?”

His very first decision with Grandma was whether they should use
her home as bunker and ride out the disaster. He was happy to
realized he'd made the right call on that score. They had plenty of
food, and probably could have lasted at least this long, but the
long-term prognosis was grim.

Doctor Yu turned to him. “You must be from the county. Out
there,” she pointed out the window, “is the city. Most
folks don't own guns, and the few that do were smart enough to leave
right away for greener pastures. Those that are left are at the mercy
of gangs of criminals who go house to house looking for loot. Those
gangs are strong enough to hold off the zombies, and they're strong
enough to kick out anyone who resists them. Trust me, you don't want
to be out there alone.”

“So they're here for protection,” Victoria said with
understanding.

“Yes. But also they're waiting for things to get back on
their feet. Help is coming, my friends. The government is returning.”

Yeah, about that. We aren't exactly fans.

The three of them smiled to the doctor. Liam wondered if they were
all thinking the same thing he was. The convoy fighting across the
continent wasn't carrying
their
government anymore. Not if
they were the ones who unleashed the plague…

“What if they can't make it?” He never doubted they'd
make it, but something made him ask the question. He wanted to know
if the doctor was a strategic thinker, like he was.

Her face was hard to read. Maybe a kind of sadness, or sympathy,
for him.

“I know it's hard to understand. There are tens of thousands
of people down there who need help. Most cities are probably
destroyed and overrun, but ours still has a fighting chance.
Survivors are hanging on and the government is coming to take care of
them. To carry on the fight against the infection. To help find the
cure. Don't you see that?”

He wasn't sure how to respond. Being a downer amidst such hope
wasn't really his style. But she beat him to the punch and continued
talking.

“You know, it's nice that you two are married. You'll be
creating the first generation of the renewed America once we solve
this.”

The heat from his blushing cheeks radiated off the glass windows.

5

“Welcome to the Barnes Hospital medical complex,” a
graying man in business attire waved them into his office. Liam let
his mom and Doctor Yu sit in the pair of chairs nearest the desk,
while he and Victoria stood behind them. No one offered to shake
hands.

“My name is Bosley Devareau. When Miki told me your story I
felt I had to meet you. Getting those people across town in River des
Peres was a stroke of genius. I told my security team we should look
at that for moving our own people around town to try to bring in more
supplies,” he laughed while he pushed himself back into his
plush chair.

“Thank you for letting us in,” Lana said.

Sorry we're going to ruin it all for you.

Once again he thought the timer had been reset on a safe refuge.
But he'd been wrong about Cairo, so maybe the curse was broken,
finally.

“Think nothing of it, we have plenty to get us by until help
arrives.” He pointed to a small computer monitor on his desk.
When he turned the screen, they could all see scenes of the
television coverage of the convoy. CSPAN ran continual programming,
it appeared.

He turned up the volume, assuming everyone wanted to hear. They
were in the middle of a broadcast from on top of a truck parked near
a bridge.

“The Army followed orders to the letter in those first days.
Bridge after bridge was destroyed in the initial effort to control
the infected. Now, as you can see, the convoy has been faced with the
results of those orders. After days fighting in and around
Charleston, the vanguard of the convoy is now using a two-lane bridge
near...” The announcer looked away from the camera to get his
information. “The town of Elanor, West Virginia. From here,
they are trying to get back to Interstate 64.” The man was
reporting while under an umbrella. Liam could see a gentle rain in
the background, but he also saw the trusses of the bridge now laden
with vehicles.

The reporter grabbed his ear, as if listening to someone from off
screen.

“That's right Marcia. We still don't have any reports from
the other columns. The area around Pittsburgh was particularly tough
going. My understanding is that this convoy tried to go through
underpopulated regions like West Virginia to keep away from the
undead. But even here we've seen plenty. The real enemy is the good
work done by the military—”

Mr. Devareau switched the sound back off, though Liam couldn't
take his eyes away from all the military hardware crossing the bridge
in silence. That really
could
help keep this place alive. If
they were coming to help. He wasn't anywhere near convinced on that
point.

“Once they get here, we can get back to doing the important
work of finding the cure to this thing. Getting those sick back in
their homes and away from trouble out there, or getting hurt and
killed by scared people.”

Liam held his tongue.

“And let me tell you, we've got a long way to go.”

“You mean with a cure?” Lana asked.

“With everything. Much of my staff has been diverted taking
care of sprained ankles and purifying drinking water, if you can
believe that. But yes, the cure is the reason we exist right now.
This entire complex is conducting research for the CDC, as is the
Washington University staff down at the far end of Forest Park. Those
are the only two facilities still doing research in the St. Louis
area, that I know about.”

Liam thought about Riverside, Elk Meadow, the pit mine, and
wherever Hayes had gone. Research was being done…

“Liam, tell Mr. Devareau here—”

“Please, call me Bosley. We can't be formal in such times.”

“Very well. Tell him what you told me. What you know.”

He looked to Victoria and she nodded ever so slightly. Her eyes
said to spill it all.

“Did you know...the virus didn't infect my Grandma because
she was too old?”

“How—”

“She's 104.”

He jotted some notes on the pad of paper in front of him. The
images on his monitor were still a distraction, but Liam tried to
focus on the man.

“A man named Douglas Hayes said he was with the CDC. I met
him almost at the beginning of the crisis, and he followed us out of
the city. To make a long story short, he infected my Grandma, but she
didn't get sick.”

Bosley put his pen in his mouth, thinking. “104. That would
mean she was born when? 1912, 1913, or so?”

Lana nodded in the affirmative.

“What was going on back then?” Bosley asked. “World
War I, Lusitania sinking, the Spanish Flu.”

Liam had heard of World War I, mostly from his dad. He couldn't
remember ever discussing it in school. Nor the Lusitania or the
Spanish Flu. His history books mostly focused on Civil Rights and
Hippies. That was his recollection, anyway.

“Did your Grandma get the flu when she was a kid? I wouldn't
expect you'd know that, but it would be useful to study. Maybe this
new disease shares something in common with the one a hundred years
ago, and that's why your Grandma has her immunity. But we've checked
all known strains of flu and didn't find any matches.”

“Yeah, Hayes said one of the flu viruses was man-made. He
might even have mentioned Spanish Flu. I can't recall. But that's why
it's so deadly.”

Victoria agreed, “Hayes did mention Spanish Flu, now that
you said it out loud. He said this one was like that one in how
deadly it was. He didn't say they were the same, though.”

“Well, that's still a valuable clue. Is there any way you
can put me in touch with this Mr. Hayes? I don't recall hearing that
name in any of the CDC personnel in our facility.”

Not on your life, mister.

“Well, we don't know where he is right now,” he said.
“But he seemed to have the ability to order people around. He
probably ended up at a medical facility to continue his research. He
drew blood from my Grandma and took it with him.

“OK, is there any way we could have access to your
Grandmother?”

His mom looked back at him. A warning.

“My grandma...couldn't make it here.” He left it up to
the man's imagination what he meant. With so much death, he could
only infer one thing.

“I'm sorry. Truly.”

“Surely you have other elderly people here you can test?
That would actually confirm what my Grandma did. That they carry some
kind of immunity, right?”