Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (29 page)

I'm missing half my zombie-killing team.

Another zombie ran around the corner down at the far end of the
warehouse, perhaps drawn by the noise of the tanks. He was looking at
two targets, neither of which he felt comfortable shooting, yet. The
one in the nearest door—dressed like a utility worker—would
be closest, though the runner might close the gap so they were
equally distant when he could make sure he would hit the head.

He took a knee and aimed for the first one. It was still a hundred
yards away, but he didn't want to risk letting them both close with
him. His first shot was a miss.

From the knee he threw himself on the rocky ground so he could use
both elbows to steady himself. His arm was still a little unsteady,
as he knew it would be, but he took a deep breath and tried to
re-acquire the zombie. The small scope helped a little, but the thing
was lurching from side to side, making a clean shot very difficult.
The blood-crusted face was a further distraction.

His second shot hit, but tore through the man's torso. On the
third shot the zombie tumbled to the ground. It was passed by the
runner. Now it was just the two of them.

Remember to breathe.

The trigger squeezed and he felt himself push the barrel down in
anticipation of the recoil, but he only noticed this because the gun
didn't fire. His normally reliable AK-47 finally jammed on him.

The zombie was twenty feet away—the sweet spot for him—and
he no time to clear the jam.

Half his remaining time was spent getting to his feet. Then he
held the rifle as a baseball bat. He'd seen Officer Jones do the same
with his shotgun so many days ago. This zombie was some kind of
warehouse worker. The overalls and name tag were sure giveaways. He
was only missing the hardhat…

Instead of swinging the butt of the gun, he decided to ram it into
the zombie's face as he ran into him. It seemed a safer bet. He'd
missed enough swings lately to want to try to mix it up. It didn't
seem like they were learning to defend themselves per se, but they
were unpredictable. He had no backup if he misjudged.

With a firm thrust of the warm gun barrel, he planted the gun's
stock square in the man's face. Liam tried not to look at the
resulting destruction, but his face was already pretty messed up so
it was hard to judge effectiveness. Between the bite on his neck and
the bloody effluence of the initial disease process, the man already
looked like hell. With broken teeth and a collapsed nose...it didn't
much matter.

The zombie continued ahead, pushing into Liam, but the gun's
impact had blunted the attack.

The rifle was no use in close quarters combat. Inside the reach of
his arms, the zombie was too close to hit again with any force. The
rifle did, however, provide a buffer between the teeth of the zombie
and his own neck. He was able to use it to hold off the stumbling
creature until he could ensure it wasn't going to strike. The hit to
the head had dazed it, if such a thing was possible with the sick,
and Liam used the extra seconds to readjust himself so he could get
out of its reach and bring the rifle back around for another hit.

The longer the struggle went on, the more disoriented the zombie
became. Its face was horrible to look at—the blood was running
freely, splashing Liam's clothes.

Liam figured he had things well in hand when he tripped on a rail.
He was closer to the train tracks than he thought. He fell backward
and the zombie man fell with him.

His back flared in pain as he hit the uneven rocks below, and the
weight of the man only added to his misery. The rifle he'd been using
as a wedge had moved and he was shocked to feel the barrel of the gun
on his own neck. Though the gun was jammed, it scared him to his
core.

Liam reached into his own pocket while the horrible image of the
man above him shifted, always searching for somewhere to bite.

Can they bite if their teeth are busted out?

Good one, Liam. Put that in your book!

The man didn't notice as Liam brought the Glock to bear next to
his head. Liam hesitated. The target was directly above his own, and
shooting the zombie would be messy.

If the infections spread by blood alone…

He closed his eyes.

He fired once.

6

Liam stood up in the sunshine of the day. His entire chest was
covered in blood, and he could feel it on his head and face, too.
He'd already gotten splashed by blood as the zombie fought him, so
firing the gun didn't seem relevant to that score. However, he didn't
count on being doused in the red gore.

Is this the end of my run as a hero? I never wrote a word of my
book.

He waited. The noise of the tanks behind him felt miles away.

Removing his shirt, he used it to wipe his face and clear the
worst of it. Some of it, he was dead sure, had to have gotten in his
mouth or in his eyes—both death sentences in zombie fiction. He
counted in his head, thinking of a zombie movie where the man counted
off how long it took for the infection to take root, though he had no
idea who he'd tell if he arrived at a number.

A distant pair of explosions shook him.

Or rather, two nearby explosions. His ears absorbed the sound and
he woke up to the fact both Tiger tanks had fired their main guns.
Zombies from the city had weaved their way through the warehouses and
now he saw them in the corridor where the tanks had been parked.

“Run, Liam!” he shouted to himself. “You aren't
a zombie!”

With nowhere to go that was safe, he ran for the tanks. They had
to be safer than taking on a crowd of zombies in hand-to-hand combat.

Time seemed to be running slow as he slung his rifle and
accelerated toward safety.

The dull roar of the big guns remained, but he could also hear the
screams and yelps of the zombies as they finally saw prey. That drove
him on.

He tried to concentrate on the fact he was jumping over train
tracks, as each one represented one more vector of death in the
Zombie Apocalypse. He didn't think he was ever going to lose that
fear.

As he arrived at the tanks, they fired again. The blast was loud,
and the swirl of fumes from the gun barrel engulfed him as he ran up
the side. With a cough he managed to jump and pull himself up onto
the decking. His mom's tank was on the right of the other, and both
were turned slightly toward the left. The gun barrels were aimed in
the same general direction…

He could see the ruins of a railroad bridge and the downed
interstate bridge just to the north. There were a few lingering
pieces of the blockade he'd escaped days ago, but mostly the
collapsed decking hid in the jagged surf of the fast-moving water.
Beyond was something Liam had trouble piecing together. It looked
like barges had been lined up side-by-side and the military put a
sturdy deck on the tops so vehicles could cross. It was completed to
about two-thirds of the way over the river. Twenty or so of the
barges huddled under the new span.

Towboats were moving others into place, and a big crane sat on a
purpose-built barge for construction. The two tanks were firing on
that crane as puffs of smoke came out of holes in the backside of it.

Another shot went out from the tank below him, then the whole
turret swiveled a few inches. The gun had a new target. He leaned on
the edge of the turret, intent to get inside, but movement caught his
eye on the far bank, just above where the new bridge joined with the
shore. His worst nightmare faced him.

He opened the top hatched and yelled into the interior as loud as
he could, hoping his mom would hear.

“There are tanks on the far shore.” Then, thinking of
the military jargon his dad liked, he added, “They're at eleven
o' clock!”

“I told you to get off—” Her voice stopped,
obviously distracted.

A puff of smoke appeared across the brown Mississippi. His back of
the napkin guess put it at a mile away. He froze as he waited for
what he knew was coming.

In quick succession Liam saw two explosions at the front of
Jason's tank. He didn't wait around to find out if Jason's crew
jumped out. His concern was much closer.

“Mom! Get out of there.”

As an answer, her tank fired another shot. He didn't care where it
landed.

“They're shooting us!”

He heard her yell something back, but over all the noise he didn't
know what it was. Something punched through the floodwall nearby,
indicating a return shot was close to its mark. The zombies spilling
out from between the warehouses behind him seemed like a high school
pep rally compared to the M1 Abrams tank or tanks firing at them.

The Tiger lurched. He'd never been happier in his life to move. It
began to back up, and as it did, he threw himself into the turret
compartment where he'd been before.

He'd dropped his bloodied shirt, so he scraped his back on the way
down. That was the last concern on his taxed mind.

I'm going to die in a wink and not even know it.

Another explosion rocked him. His mom was cursing as she continued
to reverse. He pulled the hatch shut above him, then fell into the
seat and held on. In seconds he found his headphones and put them on.

“Keep going Lana. Get out of here,” Jason was yelling.
How he was still alive was a miracle.

“Did we get it?” his mom asked over the radio.

Liam felt the hull rotate. The beast was turning around so it was
aimed back into the city. He sensed they were behind the floodwall,
out of sight of the lethal tanks across the river.

“Yes. The crane fell. We got it.”

“Good,” she replied. Then, softly: “That one's
for you, Jerry, my love.”

After everything he'd just seen, he had no frame of reference of
what to say in response. Even with tanks, they'd been tossing peas at
the big steel monster making its way across the river. Taking out the
helper crane was likely the best they could hope for, but at what
cost? U.S. tanks fired at them, a multitude of zombies bared down on
them, and they were nowhere near where they should be.

I get into worse troubles when Victoria isn't around...

He almost laughed.

“Mom. What's going on here? We're supposed to be getting
those things to protect Forest Park, not shoot at bridges.”

I sure as hell have no business in a war.

Cliff said boys like him had fought in Tiger tanks for the Germans
back in World War II, and it seemed impossible. Killing the odd
zombie to stay alive was one thing. Using tanks, shooting at cranes,
and playing soldier was something completely outside his comfort
zone. He experienced an irrational compulsion to jump out and make a
run for it...

He propped himself up so he could look outside using the vision
ports. Ahead, they were entering the gap between the same two
warehouses they'd used as cover earlier. Only now the narrow roadway
was filled with zombies. They'd followed them from the roadway and
had been funneled into the tight space between the two buildings.

The twin exhausts of Jason's tank belched out black fumes as it
accelerated into the…

“Oh God,” was his mom's reply.

The Tiger plowed into, and over, the horde. Whereas the tread of
the tank carried the blood and goop of a single zombie as they
arrived, now each wide tread spit out a disgusting mixture of
clothing, dark red blood, and the light speckles of broken and
smashed bones.

“Hang on, Liam.”

The crowd was so thick most of the infected were either smashed
outright, or pushed down underneath the center of the tank. Some
survived by accidentally hugging the walls of the warehouses as the
tanks passed. A few found their way onto the decks. Those in the
middle trough popped back up as Jason's tank passed over them or they
fell sideways in the grime and remains of their smashed brothers and
sisters. The worst were those who had been halved…

Liam looked away as the tank shuddered. His tank smashed the
injured and the few still standing.

For many seconds he listened to the sickening crunches and the
shrieks of the second deaths happening to the zombies. Even for him
it was too much. He smashed his headphones over his ears as he tried
to block out everything else.

“Lana. You there?”

“I'm here.”

“I've got an issue. I...uh…can't see out my vision
slit. These bastards have clogged it. Blood is dripping inside the
leaky seals above me. Mike can guide me, but I'll need to stop,
somewhere.”

Liam focused on pressing the headphones. A jarring motion followed
a sliding action as his mom's driving skidded them around on the
materials below. The machine bumped into a wall. He felt the turret
rotate automatically. A brief movement...

He had to look. With great resolve he took in the destruction.
Jason's Tiger was getting hung up in the mess. On each side he only
had a foot or two to spare—he judged the tank had to be 10 feet
across—and the zombies in front of the tank were either getting
sucked under or pushed up onto the deck. It was like walking into
deeper and deeper water at the beach.

Lana drove her tank into the back of the other, then throttled up.
The movement of the turret ensured the main gun didn't hit the tank
ahead. It reminded Liam of the
Valkyrie
pushing the dead
engine ahead of it.

“Just aim straight, Jason, we'll push through.”

More active zombies made it onto the lead tank, and some began
jumping onto his own, now that the two were essentially one. Where he
could see the walls next to them, they were smeared with blood at the
forces pushing against them.

Even after all he'd seen, he felt his stomach gurgle. His disgust
of blood was rekindled.

“When we clear this corridor, I need you to lead.”
Jason laughed like he was having fun.