Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (20 page)

“Mom, will you walk him back? I need to take Victoria for a
walk.”

She smiled a knowing smile.

Marty's dream had gone on for too long, she decided. She walked
down a long rock-hewn corridor filled with cars and trucks—abandoned
apparently. The tunnel was wide enough for two lanes of traffic, but
everyone was faced the same direction. That was the way she walked,
candle in hand.

“Al?” Her voice was weaker than she intended, but this
dream had her chilled to the bone. She even felt the cold, which was
new for her sleepwalking.

Sleepwalking? Is that what I've been doing?

The votive candle fit snugly in her hand, though the wax was
beginning to drizzle down the sides as it burned. She dared not
disturb it, however, as she had no way to relight it. To lose light
here would be a nightmare within a nightmare.

“Al?” she called a bit louder. “Where are you?”

Lately her lucid dreams were happening without Al's presence.
That's when she saw the young girl. But then he'd returned as they
stood in her ruined backyard. Until… Something had come down
the alley, destroying the neighborhood. Was Al gone, too?

Far behind her, she heard the solitary moan of one of the
infected.

The word “Vombies” popped in her head. Where had she
heard that before? Someone called these things a combination of
zombie and vampire. It was on the edge of her awareness, but it
wouldn't appear.

“See Al, my memory is anything but special.”

A breeze from ahead washed over the tiny flame. It flickered, and
appeared in danger of being extinguished, but she cupped her other
hand around it to shield it.

On she went.

The cavern became larger, like she was exiting the highway of
cars, and entering an underground hall full of them. The light
reflected from the chrome and glass of an unknown number of vehicles,
but they went on beyond the reach of her tiny light.

“Al, please. I need to wake up.”

Could she? Why didn't she think of that before? Prior to her, eh,
vivid dreams—which started about six months ago—she had
the ability to rouse herself from sleep by recognizing she was
dreaming while inside her dream. She'd mastered the skill over a
lifetime of nightmares—mostly revolving around that little
garage.

Maybe that garage has been destroyed.

She searched her thoughts. The last dream she could remember with
Al, something had been coming. Something that destroyed the other
garages and outbuildings along the alley. Maybe it finally took care
of the dark place that she was unable to ever truly leave behind. Why
else would she stay in the same house after her husband died? After
the neighborhood lost its value. After she should have downsized.

If the garage was gone, maybe she was free. Perhaps Al was a
vestige of that prison, and without the weight of the accident with
baby Victoria tying her down, she was moving on.

She admitted it was the thinnest of theories.

In the large cavern, she was given no hints about what she should
do. So, she walked on.

Car after car passed, though these were different than the ones in
tunnel. Where those were intact, these were all ravaged and bloody
near the windows. She'd seen it many times before—infected had
broken the glass and got inside, or the occupants had gotten out.

The mix of cars and trucks gave way to all trucks. They looked
like the type a power company would use to fix the lines. They each
had a rectangular back end that had an arm with a bucket the workers
would use to rise up and fix the transformers on telephone poles. The
weak light hardly disturbed the trucks as she walked by.

“Metropolitan Power and Light,” she said aloud.

She had to be somewhere other than St. Louis. The local power
outfit was called AmerenUE. Several members of her extended family
worked there over the years.

“Where am I, Al?” If the direct approach didn't work,
she thought she could coax him out with a question.

It took her many minutes to cross the room. The wind sheer against
the candle increased the further she made it into the parking lot of
trucks, and to compensate she had to shield the flame with her hand
in an ever-tighter, and painful, semi-circle. She lost the ability to
see much beyond the sides of the trucks right next to her, but she
was compelled to continue.

Eventually she came to a low wire she had to step over. She
continued for a few more feet before she came to the conclusion she
was through the truck park. But ahead…

Nothing.

There were no trucks. No reflections. The light didn't reach
anything.

She spoke a short prayer, asking for guidance.

She heard a sound on the wind.

“Marty?” A man's voice, very faint. It could be Al,
but she couldn't be sure.

“Al? This is Marty, yes!”

“Grandma Marty? Is it possible?”

“Yes, Al. I'm here!”

The man's voice was still hard to hear. The wind was tossing the
light from side to side, making it difficult to see anything at all.
She kept looking at her hand to focus on protecting the light, but it
ruined her night vision.

Louder, the voice broke through. “Marty. Don't take another
step. There's no bottom.”

It was not Al's voice.

2

Marty woke in a bed, with the nearby sounds of heavy artillery.
Rather than worry about that, she tried to capture the gist of the
dream before it faded. It made her think of staying put. “Don't
take another step,” the voice had said. Stay in Cairo? Is that
what her brain, memories, or whatever, were advising her to do? It
sort of made sense.

More loud noises brought her out of her reverie. The kids were
awake, too, and they all sat at the front window watching the light
show. Outside, very close, guns fired over and over.

“They're shooting on the other side of the levee.”

It wasn't a kid. They weren't teens at the window.

“Where am I?”

A nurse came out of the darkness. “Hello ma'am. You're in
the Cairo community center. This floor is reserved for people of
your, ah, age.” She smiled, but her eyes said it was too early
in the morning and she wasn't yet ready to suffer stupid questions.

“What's going on out there?”

There were three large windows, and though the lights were off in
the room, there was some light leaking in from the hallway. But even
if there were no lights on, the light from the battle would have
illuminated everything. It was like the paparazzi were outside the
window snapping photos over and over.

“They're giving it to the zombies. The Army, that is.”

She looked outside again and saw something in the sky light up and
send a finger of light down to the ground. As she watched, it moved
for several seconds before turning off. Another beam followed the
first, like it was a pattern. A dull chatter came through the window
each time the light went on and off. It was a counterpoint to the
reports of the big guns.

“Tanks. Planes. Artillery. They're sending those things to
hell,” the nurse offered. She looked at all the people standing
at the windows. It had to be the middle of the night as they were all
in their bed clothes. Marty used the light of the guns to sweep the
room. There were a dozen beds, like a communal hospital ward.

Or a crazy house.

I'm not crazy!

She argued with herself for a time, before realizing how crazy
that
was.

I don't want to be crazy.

“Those are Paladins. They got the big stuff here to protect
us,” one of her male companions said from the window.

Things seemed to be well in hand, so she let herself drift back to
sleep. She wasn't sure which reality was the nightmare anymore.

When she woke, it was daytime. But the activity and buzz in the
room was just the same as she'd left it last night. People were still
at the window.

“What is this all about?” She was a little perturbed,
but she chalked it up to lack of sleep. She hated hospitals because
half the time the nurses didn't tell the patient when things were
going to happen. The other half of the time, the nurses didn't even
know. It made her anxious on the best of days.

She got out of bed and cleaned herself up a bit. She was in
hospital scrubs, which further darkened her mood.

“Lord, give me strength.”

Her prayer was so she could stand up. Always a gamble with her
back and all the exertion she'd endured lately. She was secretly
happy someone had parked a rolling walker by her bedside. The old
Marty would have taken it as an insult, but now she needed it to get
to the window. She was compelled to know what was happening…

The windows were crowded, but the others gave her room to wheel up
to the glass. She was unsurprised to see she was, by far, the oldest
person in the room. It had been a long time since she'd seen a peer
from her age group. The one-hundred and older set was dying off.

Outside, there were people running too and fro, like a bad movie.
There was no order to it. The building she was in was several stories
high and was apparently a focal point for many of the runners.

“Where is everyone going?”

“Oh, mercy me,” said one lady with her at the window.
“No one knows what's going on. We just know they left us.”

“The nurses? I saw one last night,” she thought about
it for a second, “though I haven't seen one this morning.”
She'd only been awake for a few minutes, but her experience told her
a room full of elderly would require at least one nurse, around the
clock. Probably two or three if the retirement community was an
accredited facility.

“No, not in here, though you're right. I've not seen any,
either. No, I'm talking about out there.” She pointed down.
“They said the Army stopped shooting the zombies.”

The sounds from last night were gone. She'd not thought about it,
though it should have been the first thing she noticed after such a
violent overnight.

“Maybe they stopped them all?” Marty knew that wasn't
right. Her dreams were weird, but often gave her clues she would
later recognize. Conveniently after the fact, she lamented. But the
dream of something coming down the alley seemed to fit. Whatever “it”
was, the Army had fought it outside Cairo and the battle was over.
Or…

She turned it over and over.

Or, the Army was defeated.

What could defeat the U.S. Army? Zombies wouldn't have a chance
against guns and bombs.

The other woman turned from outside to look Marty in the face. Her
old blue eyes focused from behind her spectacles. “Are you all
right?” She said sympathetically. “You look lost.”

“I'm fine,” Marty responded. “I'm confused how
the Army could have lost against the zombies. Last night I heard them
give them all they had. The light show kept me up.”

“Yeah, that was something, wasn't it? The Army didn't lose,
my dear. Oh no, it's much worse than that. They've abandoned us.”

For the first time in her life, she was glad to have a sturdy
rolling walker. She leaned hard against the brakes on the handlebars,
while she assimilated the horrible new data.

3

It took a lot of begging and cajoling, but Marty managed to get
dressed, go downstairs, and make it outside. Several nurses tried to
stop her, but she was adamant on leaving.

“I'm not going to waste away in a bed when so much is going
on,” was her war cry.

But she wasn't going to walk to the levee on her own. Fortunately,
age had its privileges. An older black gentleman wheeled up in a
green six-wheeled motorized cart. To her eyes it was a golf cart,
though it said John Deere Gator on the side.

“Where ya goin' ma'am?” He had a canvas boonie hat and
wore a bright red buttoned shirt. Despite the heat, he seemed
relaxed. A direct contrast with all the crazy people running around
the town.

“I want to see over the levee.”

His eyes widened. “Really? You sure that's a good idea? I
heard the Army's gone n' left us. Could be trouble there.”

“Please. I have to see. I need to know what to do next.”

“Got big plans, do ya?” He was friendly, and didn't
even protest when a couple of young women hopped in the bed of his
vehicle.

“Where ya girls going?” he repeated to them.

“The waterfront. Boats are leaving.”

“Really? That seems kinda dumb. Where can ya get to that's
safer n' here?”

Neither girl responded. Marty couldn't turn her head enough to
look back at them, but she judged they were college-aged. She frowned
that anyone could survive this long and not have a plan for saving
themselves. It pained her that her own plan was so nebulous, but, in
her defense, she had to depend on others for almost everything she
did. Those girls, so young and strong, were free to save themselves.
All they needed was some proper foresight.

“Take the girls to the levee first, please.” She
wasn't sure if the man had decided which destination to hit first,
but he seemed happy enough to listen to her request. If the girls had
thoughts on the issue, they didn't reveal them.

Don't let anyone push you around.

She didn't want to say that out loud, but she felt sorry for the
girls. They were letting themselves flow with the situation, instead
of controlling it. If they were trying to escape, they were going to
the one place where that would be most difficult. The places closest
to the zombies. Did they even know?

Without looking back, she asked, “You girls from around
here?”

“No, we came up from Memphis. Rumor said this was the only
town with any protection from those devil thingies.”

“You mean
zombies
,” the man suggested.

They didn't reply right away. “You think they're zombies?
Aren't those pretend?”