Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (31 page)

“Mom, he's coming around. He's going to have us.”

He dropped back into his seat on the interior, a plan forming in
his cluttered mind. The monitor still displayed the video feed of the
second little drone. It seemed to be on remote as it had been
following them on their drive without any guidance from a person. Yet
it seemed likely—

“There you are.”

A little joystick was attached to a small box set off to the side
of the screen. It was lost in the darkness of a nook in the wall, but
he pulled it out and watched with relief as the drone shifted
position with his adjustment. Years of video gaming yielded high
dividends in that moment as he turned it so the camera faced
south—where the Warthog would replicate its last strafing run.
There were a lot of things he didn't know about flying it, but the
only one that mattered was how far away it would go. That would
determine whether his stupid plan would work or not.

The A-10 showed up as a dot. As expected, it was flying just above
the tops of the low buildings in this part of the city, and it was
going so slow he expected it to fall right out of the sky. The pilot
had timed it perfectly as the Tiger would be in the meat of where the
rounds fell on the last run.

His drone hovered over the top of the raised highway behind them.
The cars and trucks on top were frozen in time—from the early
roadblocks and bridge closures. The drone steadily watched to the
south. The dot grew in size. The distinctive shape of the A-10
Warthog could not be mistaken from the front. Its wings were very
nearly flat, like one long plank supporting the narrow airframe in
the middle. The twin-turbine engines hung off the back like a burly
weightlifter hauling two kegs on his shoulders. If there was one
thing Liam remembered about the plane, it was its survivability. It
could almost lose a full wing and still make it back to base…

Which made his task that much harder.

With fine adjustments he moved the drone into position in front of
a sleek white bus. He kept the drone at the bridge, as he had the
line where the plane and the drone would meet. Now he only needed the
pilot to see it, so he dipped the drone almost to the top of the
white bus. The black drone and the white paint might catch his eye…

The Warthog closed in a few seconds, and Liam lifted the little
bird so it would appear in front of the pilot's canopy or his own
video feed—he had no idea how an A-10 pilot would see the
battlefield. In the two seconds he had before it could angle down on
him and his mom, he jinked the joystick and tried to maneuver the
drone so it would go into the Warthog's spinning engine. He'd seen it
done in a movie and hoped it would blow off.

His ham-handed attempt seemed laughable as the tiny drone and the
huge plane came together. But, to his shock, the pilot lifted his
plane so he would miss the drone, and then continued upward without
firing his chaingun, repeating the steep bank he'd done before.

He threw down the joystick and jumped up to see out his hatch
again. They'd entered the safety of the tall buildings.

I doubt anyone would believe what just happened.

4

Skyscrapers greeted them with welcoming arms, but the streets
remained hostile. Zombies were thicker around the great symbols of
modern man, as if they retained the memories of all they represented.
Or, he surmised, they grouped up on the urban streets because they
were too stupid to figure out how to get out of town.

Yeah, that. I want you zombies to stay stupid...

The Tiger turned a corner, heading east. Liam watched from his
perch in the hatch on the turret. The echo of the A-10's gun
reverberated in the valley of the skyscrapers, making it impossible
to tell where the sounds originated. Since his own tank wasn't under
attack, it had to be Jason's taking fire. Lana tried to call Jason on
the radio, but didn't get anything back.

A strong explosion rumbled somewhere nearby, suggesting they
weren't just using death-dealing Gatling guns.

“Gettin' close.”

He almost responded with relief when he saw a plane in the
distance. It was
far
away—beyond the Arch to the
east—but a puff of smoke caught his eye. It was suddenly a huge
danger.

“Mom, turn!”

“Where, Liam? We're almost there.”

“Just freakin' turn!” he screamed.

That was enough to get her attention. The Tiger slowly banked left
onto a cross street, ignoring the infected zombies shambling in the
street. He dropped into the turret and held his breath. The missile
was definitely heading directly for them, down the length of the main
street between the tall city blocks.

The heat of the explosion came in through the opening above him. A
shockwave rocked the tank, but otherwise they were unharmed.

“Good call,” echoed distantly in his 'phones.

He was up and looking back. The zombies in the intersection had
been knocked down, but not vaporized as he expected, by the
near-miss. His eyes scanned both directions along the smaller
avenue—searching for more missiles—but the buildings to
the north and south were aligned so that nothing could shoot them
from a distance. Of course, a crafty pilot could drop something on
them from directly above, but that was a threat he didn't want to
consider just yet.

Or rockets.

Or suicide drones.

Or a nuke.

There were a million and one ways to die in the Zombie Apocalypse.

“We have to turn onto the next street and head east for one
more block.”

An old cartoon popped in his head. Everyone was running from door
to door in a long hallway and you could never guess from which door
the characters would pop out next. It was random and
unpredictable—and it gave him an idea.

“Mom. Turn the tank around. They'll be waiting for us on
this next street. They won't be looking for us on the last one.”

The tank stopped before they'd reached the intersection. She
worked the controls to spin them around.

“You're clever, like your father.”

My dead father…

He felt his elation drain out. Still happy he said something
smart, but remembering his father at that moment was too much to
bear. They swung left onto the main road they'd just vacated—Liam
saw a fire still burning on the first floor of the office building
where the missile had gone when it missed them. The lobby entryway
would never be the same, though the destruction wasn't as devastating
as he assumed it'd be. They were firing tank killers, not bunker
busters.

Lana gunned the engine as they veered erratically around the
zombies wandering the roadway. Some she hit out of necessity, but she
made an honest effort to miss them. He was unsure how he felt about
that. Killing them was horrible, but leaving them alive was equally
frightening. Every body on this street would need to be put down at
some point...

His eyes willed a “dot” not to show up on the horizon.
The devilish call of the A-10 sounded from elsewhere in the city, but
it wasn't on their street. For a second he saw the gray plane from
the side. It was by the Arch grounds. The tank started to drift to
the right.

“Hang on. We're going in!”

The tank crunched a newspaper kiosk, a couple trash cans, and
headed for the glass facade of one of newer-looking skyscrapers on
the street. He ducked into his hiding place just as the Tiger
breached the translucent entryway. Glass tinkled down on top of the
tank, though only small shards found their way into the turret hatch.

The Tiger sounded louder in the enclosed space, and it came to a
stop at the moment Liam got the nerve to stand and look outside once
more. The lobby was simple, with several businesses on the ground
floor, and plenty of room for a tank in the middle. Lana had driven
it well inside—away from the windows.

“Grab your gun. They'll follow us in, I'm sure.”

It was understood what she meant, though now it could also mean
missiles, drones, or soldiers.

He had his AK-47 in hand, still with a round wedged in the chamber
he needed to clear, and climbed from the hatch. Almost as if by
magic, the drone that he'd used to scare off the A-10—that was
his story—flew in through the big hole in the front of the
building, returned to the tank, and tucked itself back into the box
on the back of the turret. The other drone box was still open, and
Liam felt an irrational sadness, as that piece of equipment would
never again return.

He climbed down to the tiled floor and ran toward the stairwell
nearby.

“No! This isn't the building. We have to cross the street,”
she yelled as she ran, rifle in hand, toward the hole opened by the
tank.

“Why?”

“Travis would kill me if I parked the tank in his building.
It would give him away,” she laughed, but there was fear in her
voice. “Now hurry.”

She was outside before he could say another word.

He slung his rifle as he cleared the glass frontage. The crunch of
broken glass a distant distraction. There were too many zombies
zeroing in on them.

“Just run!” His mom was already into the street.

The pistol was in his hand, though he had no idea how many rounds
he had left. That mystery could get him killed…

Lana made it to the far side, turned around, and whacked two
zombies that had gotten close to him. He felt he could outpace them,
but she saw them as a threat. He wasn't complaining.

As he caught up to her, she turned and they ran together up to the
building directly across from where she'd parked the Tiger. The doors
were locked, as he expected, and the revolving door wouldn't budge,
so Lana put a round through one of the front windows. The glass
shattered and she stepped through. He was about to do the same when
something glanced off his head. He instinctively ducked, though
laughably too late.

A woman zombie in a torn business suit stood tentatively behind a
decorative tree nearby. She'd thrown something—a little bottle
of soda!

Monkey's fling poop. This isn't intelligence.

He stepped through, thinking about flying bricks and other
dangerous objects. Always something to be worried about.

They were inside a huge sophisticated-looking lobby. Two
escalators—frozen without power—rose to a balcony level
above. Large plants and small trees tastefully decorated the area,
though numerous sitting areas near them had been ruined. It looked as
if a riot had come through here. Not hard to imagine.

They ran over the tiled floor to the escalator. It was unnatural
to put his foot on it and not get carried upward, but he sprinted up
the steps with a tired effort.

As they reached the top, Lana halted. The view of the tank inside
the lobby across the street was too much for either to pass up. She
had parked it as far inside as she could get it. Nothing could shoot
it from the air—unless missiles could turn sideways—though
anyone driving by couldn't miss the path of destruction leading up to
and inside that building.

From his vantage point, he could see a magnificent glass
chandelier hung just above the tank, highlighting two pieces of Old
World technology that seemed out of place in this new one. Of all the
crazy things, Liam realized it was the chandelier that didn't really
fit anymore. The weapon of war was currently the only thing useful to
their survival.

And my mom just drove us across a hostile city in it.

He looked ahead, wondering if this day was ever going to make
sense. The cry of zombies entering the lobby reinforced his suspicion
it never would.

5

The zombies were coming in from both directions on the street, as
if they all knew the destruction wrought by the tank was going to
lead them to blood. A few stumbled into the lobby across the street,
but more came to the hole in the glass they'd used to get into their
current building. He wanted to run, but the science of it drew him
in.

How the hell are they doing this?

Was it movement that attracted them? Noise? Smell? He'd likened
them to bloodhounds a couple times over the past weeks, but there had
to be limits. Did they continue to track him no matter how far he
went? Maybe they did, and he'd just been moving too far and fast to
notice. Now, somehow, they knew the tank was empty but this lobby had
live bait.

That got him moving. There were too many variables to consider,
and having bloodhound zombies that were going to follow him to the
ends of the earth was one irrational fear he didn't want to carry.
But he'd seen all kinds of...skills. Chicago zombies could climb.
Other zombies could project some kind of smell that could make people
do crazy things. Maybe St. Louis zombies excelled at following prey.
And at least one knew how to toss bottles.

Taking it to its conclusion, it could mean all those zombies that
he'd seen over the past weeks had followed him out of St. Louis,
chased him across the county, then followed him to Cairo, Illinois.
Did they follow him back up the river, and into the pit mine? Were
they even now stacking themselves up with all those zombies he'd seen
down in the mine so they could escape from the open grave? A
horrible, never-ending stream of undead spewing forth from the
cemetery plot…

He shivered. It was very unlikely, and driven by his imagination
under stress, but so much of what he'd seen so far had been
unlikely
.
Zombies themselves were fictional creatures, yet here they were. Here
he was living the fiction. If zombies were real, it wasn't a stretch
to think they could follow him forever.

More zombies came into the lobby. One slid on the glass and fell,
but most kept their feet. The bulk of them went for the steps—he
was the only living thing they could see—but a few went for
different parts of the lobby.

He organized his thoughts around tossing a curse at them, but he
held it in. No sense alerting them all to his presence. As he stepped
away from the railing he honed in on where his mom had gone.”