Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (24 page)

While everyone checked their gear, Liam thought he saw someone in
a small deli across the block. A dark face—he was sure of
it—popped up in the window, then went back down.

There's zombies all right.

They ran. The alley was empty as far as they could see toward
downtown, though they only walked it a block or two. Then they turned
right, to the south, and soon found the rails. Everyone kept close,
and quiet.

Things started getting weird about a mile in. A familiar smell
came in on a light breeze. He couldn't place it. It reminded him of
the smell of spilled soda on sticky hot summertime blacktop at Six
Flags. Sweet, but with a touch of revulsion.

It dissipated quickly, and they continued on.

The railroad right-of-way was genius. He wished he'd thought of
it. Each side the railroad was lined with trees, buildings, or high
embankments of dirt. The city people living nearby didn't want to see
the trains all day and night, so they did their best to hide them.
They did see zombies from time to time, but other than a few
knifings—they were trying to stay quiet—it wasn't
necessary to engage many.

They'd passed an abandoned grain elevator, a parking lot with an
endless sea of yellow school buses, and went under several segments
of the raised highways which snaked through the city. They saw more
zombies hovering about, but they tended to stay near buildings where
presumably they sensed food inside. If they had a clue a gravy train
was walking by, they'd have sprinted to the food trough. The railroad
kept them off the radar.

There it is again.

The smell was back, stronger.

“Guys, hold up,” he spoke as quietly as he could to
stop Jason at the front.

“Mom, do you smell that?”

She crouched, as they all did, and took a moment to consider. With
a nod of understanding she admitted she did. “We smelled
something like this when we were attacked on the boat. There's an
Arizona out there.”

Liam was surprised but pleased his mom used the term he created
for the new type of zombie.

“A what?”

Lana indicated he should tell them.

“It's a zombie that has several traits in one package. It
can climb like the Chicago zombies. It can swim. It can send off
this...smell...that can make you see things. It almost got our group
while we were on a river.”

That got everyone alert. They formed a nearly perfect circle as a
first line of defense.

“We have to find cover. Head for that railroad shed. We have
to be getting close to our destination.”

With great discipline they continued along the tracks until they
came to a split in the rails as they entered a switching yard. There
were a handful of train cars sitting on the many sidings, but they
ran toward a long enclosed building which appeared to house train
engines so they could get out of the weather. Or maybe it was used to
repair them.

A figure appeared on the other side of the yard, but it
disappeared in a grouping of boxcars. At the cusp of the building,
Liam stopped to get a better look, but it didn't show up again. As he
turned his head toward the door, and his friends, he pretended he was
in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. It was childish, but what would a zombie
know about such things. All his movements suggested he was going
inside the door, and he did walk through the threshold, but as soon
as he was out of sight he turned around and then popped his head back
outside. There, near the box cars, he watched as the Arizona ran
further along the tracks.

It's following us.

6

The building was exactly as he imagined. It had the volume of two
or three high school gymnasiums strung one after the other, with rows
of windows near the top to keep the place well lit. Several train
engines were parked inside, some with clear signs of malfunction.
Panels were opened, with their dirty diesel engines exposed. Some had
wheels removed. Mechanic's cranes and rigging filled the voids on the
edges of the room.

“Mom. It's the same type of zombie out there. In fact, I
think it's the
exact
one that attacked us before.”

“You mean the one that swam after the captain,” Jason
asked.

“Yes. I recognized the zombie's uniform.”

“Is that possible?” the redhead asked. Jason looked at
her, but said nothing.

“We keep moving. Stay alert,” he said at last.

They all ran to the opposite end of the building. The sun shone
through the door as it rose high in the eastern sky of mid-morning.

One of the men nibbled on something as they waited at the door.
The starving Polar Bears had indulged in some of the food Hans had
horded as part of their agreement, just as he himself had indulged in
the chocolate chip cookies. His memories tried to remind him of
Victoria, but he pushed it aside.

Stay in the moment. Get the tank. Be the hero.

There it was. He wasn't going to over-complicate things.

“OK. We have guns. Everyone stay calm. A zombie is a
zombie.”

Liam knew Jason didn't really believe that. He was there when the
Arizona attacked, but he knew why he said what he did.

“Just a little bit farther and we're there. Let's go.”
He quietly slipped out and ran along a parked line of tanker cars.
The black containers were linked together as far as he could see them
as they curved with the track toward the south, out of the rail yard.
The day was still heating up, but the black cars radiated every drop
of sunshine and blasted it back at him.

The others followed. Though they didn't discuss it, he decided to
let everyone pass so he was the caboose of the expedition. He ran
along just behind the two men, but let himself look back every chance
he got. The feeling of being followed was overpowering, and the more
he ran the more he let his nose believe the odor of the Arizona was
getting stronger.

Ahead, the others halted at the last tanker car. One of the men
ran into the back of the redhead woman, eliciting a quick exchange of
curse words.

“You need to apologize for hitting me.”

“The hell I do, it was an accident.”

“What are you, stupid?” She pointed up. “It's
broad daylight. How'd you miss me? You wanted to smack my ass.”

“If I wanted to smack you, I—” He moved quickly
and his hand spanked loudly against her butt, leaving her
open-mouthed shocked.

With a vicious scream she threw herself at him, clawing at his
face.

He felt an anger rising inside him, as well. Anger that they were
endangering everyone by making so much noise. Human voices were the
dinner bell of the dead.

Look back.

While the two wrestled, the others were slow to react. It seemed
to catch everyone so far off guard they didn't know what steps to
take to solve the problem.

Look behind you. That's the problem.

He was able to appreciate their tactical situation the more he
thought about it. They were exposed on the one side of the train
cars. To the north, he could see the skyscrapers tightly huddled in
downtown St. Louis. The train tracks here had little cover, but there
were no buildings nearby for zombies to hide, either. The only
possible way a zombie could get them would be…

He looked at the dirty tanker. Oil gooped off the end of the
“hitch” thing that would link this last car with the next
one. There was a ladder to the top of the tubular hold. And up
there...

The Arizona dropped on the man and woman, sending all three to the
ground in a heap. The sight of the zombie broke the spell, and
everyone moved as if they'd been released.

Liam's first reaction was to pull the second man backwards. He did
it to shake the man out of his stupor, but his face was grim and
serious, reassuring Liam he didn't need additional help.

His mom and Jason, in the front of the group, were also alert now.
They were moving away from the scrum, but both were bringing their
rifles to bear. He did the same, though there was no obvious way to
shoot the zombie at that moment.

Screw that, Liam. Be the hero.

In seconds he moved
toward
the struggling people on the
ground. The redhead and man were no longer fighting each other, but
were so stunned by the falling zombie they hadn't been able to
properly defend themselves. There was blood involved…

Liam took the butt of his gun and raised it high, then forced it
down on what he thought was the zombie's skull. Things were moving so
fast he missed on the first strike. To his amazement the zombie
wheeled back and turned on him.

“No,” was all he could say before it separated itself
from the two on the ground and lunged at him. But the woman had
caught the zombie's foot. How she could see was beyond Liam's
understanding. Her face was a bloody mess.

But the zombie surged against its captor and was free with a
powerful yank of its leg.

Liam was fumbled with his gun, desperate to get the business end
facing the proper direction, but it wasn't going to be fast enough.
He'd taken two steps back, the zombie had taken one step forward,
when the left side of the Arizona's head popped and a loud metallic
bang followed. Something had struck both the zombie and the tanker
car. Distant thunder of a gunshot followed. It had come from
somewhere toward the city.

The group's paralysis ended. Jason and Lana grabbed the redhead,
and he and the remaining man pulled up the injured man.

“Run for it!” Jason yelled.

Liam wanted to argue that whoever saved them was obviously
friendly, but he wasn't in charge. Five minutes later they came to a
split in the rail. The main rail line continued on, to the south,
into the heart of the manufacturing buildings in this part of the
city. But the secondary rail of a siding led to an abandoned parking
lot.

Two forms sat in one corner of the lot, shielded by the larger
buildings nearby. Both were the size of big dump trucks, with long
barrels pointing out the front like rulers in the hands of Catholic
nuns—he'd seen that in a movie. Bulky and squat, the tanks
broke all his preconceptions about what would happen at the end of
the world.

A pair of World War II German Tiger tanks—very similar to
the ones he saw down in the mine—waited for their new owners.

Victoria wasn't happy to see Liam walking away with Lana, but she
was relieved she would have some time to herself. Part of her wanted
to explore why she felt so upset at seeing her own dorm room, but
another part needed Liam to step away for a short time so she
wouldn't say something mean she would later regret.

I'm sorry, Liam, I'm trying to hold it all together, too.

The first place she went with her newfound freedom was back to her
dorm room. Once her door was secure she pulled out a photo album she
had stuffed behind her bed. She slid on top of her blankets and
leaned against the wall with it in her arms. The mauve-colored binder
held what remained of her life in Colorado. Paging through the photos
was something she desperately wanted to do, but feared it so much she
couldn't do it when Liam was around.

The first dozen or so pages had been purged of most of their
photos. Here or there she saw pictures of herself with her parents,
her friends, or her relatives. The white gouges once held pictures of
him
. She couldn't even say his name, she hated him so much.
The name “Darby” was engraved in the soft paper where one
of the photos had been removed. She erased the name, but the
impression of her own pencil was harder to hide.

Finally, she got to the photo she was searching for.

I miss you, sis. I pray for you every day and ask God to take
care of you.

In the photo she had her arm draped over the shoulder of her older
sister. They were both dressed like marathon runners. The sports
attire and ear-to-ear grins complimented the fancy medals they both
held up for the camera. She remembered Mom and Dad being in the
stands, cheering for their girls.

Valerie was a few years older, and, she believed, a whole lot
prettier. The picture showed them both draped in sweat, but Val
seemed to wear it better. Her hair was shorter, for one. Her own long
hair looked like hell. Kind of like it did all the time now, with all
her zombie escapades.

The tears came out in torrents, and wouldn't stop until she turned
the page many minutes later.

The number of missing photos of
him
decreased the further
into the book she got. After the breakup there were none, but by then
she was most of the way through the keepsake. Her mom put it together
for her before she knew about the breakup and she didn't think to
remove the photos herself before giving it to her daughter. Victoria
was too forgiving to worry about the oversights. Those photos were
either still blowing around the wastelands of western Kansas, or
they'd disintegrated in the winds and rain out there.

A photo of her dad caught her eye. They had gone together on a
rare father-daughter hike to Mt. Evans. The scene showed her and her
father huddled together in the insane winds of the fourteen-thousand
foot peak. Her own hair was standing straight out to the side, while
her dad's shaggy mop showed almost no sign of being windblown.
Whoever they got to take the picture had a steady hand because the
quality was incredible.

I'm sorry Daddy. I'm sorry for not telling you and Mom the
truth...about Dar—

She didn't want to say the name, even in her own thoughts.

Gee, why would that be?

She'd told her parents about the breakup of course, but being
“promised” to someone required a little deeper
explanation. That's what she thought, back then. So she did the only
thing that made any sense after suffering the indignity he suffered
upon her.