Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 (32 page)

“Hurry,” she said from across the wide, posh lobby.

She was at a door, holding it open. The industrial carpet covered
his footfalls and he raced fifty feet without looking back. He rushed
into the darkness, and she pulled the door closed.

A few zombies arrived at the door only a few seconds later. He
didn't even know runners were following.

I'm getting sloppy.

The zombies beat on the door, and looked through the narrow glass
window in the middle, but they wouldn't see anything inside unless
they could see in the dark.

Liam knew conceptually what a threat that would be, but he was
dealing with his fatigue by not caring about all the wonderful skills
these zombies
could
have.

“I need a rest.”

Lana laughed nervously. “I'd love to stop here for a long
nap. I can tell you need one.” He saw her face in profile as
the light from the lobby reflected through the door's window.
“Sheesh. I'm sorry about all this. I had no idea we'd get
tangled up with the military so soon.”

“You mean you expected to get tangled up with them
later
?
Mom, just tell me what this is about. Why did dad's letter say you
were some kind of spy? Are you still?”

“Walk with me. We have to go to the top floor.”

He sighed, but laughed at the irony. He'd already walked up a
flight of stairs to the top of the Arch. No building was taller than
the Arch in St. Louis.

I can do this.

He bounded to the first landing. Somewhere in the darkness he
wondered if there was a plaque with the world-record time for
climbing to the top of this building. “I think we can beat
seven minutes to the top,” he joked. That was the record to the
top of the Arch. This had to be shorter.

“You go right ahead. Dear old mom is going to take it one
step at a time.” She popped on a little flashlight that was
very bright and moved slowly up the first flight.

Victoria didn't get the joke, either, when he'd said it back at
the Arch. He'd made the mistake of calling her Vicky, which led to an
uncomfortable 1076-step climb. Hoping to head off another bad ascent,
he thought of something else.

“Um, so tell me what we'll find upstairs.”

“I once told you none of this is what you think. Your
father's role. Mine. Yours. I've been trying to figure out a way to
explain it without sounding like I'm insane.”

“Mom, zombies walk the earth. My girlfriend and I run from
the infected when we're on our dates. And I've just watched you drive
a World War II tank into a skyscraper. I
know
you're insane.
We all are.”

“You may be right about that. I think your father was the
only one who seemed at home in the chaos.” She reached her hand
to him as she neared. “Liam. I'm so sorry you lost your dad.”

In his heart he wanted to open up. He'd kept himself distracted
since he'd found out, but the emotions were a turbulent undercurrent
which welled to the surface at the worst times. Now would be a
particularly bad time.

“Mom, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be selfish. You lost—”

“Stop. You're only fifteen—no, you're sixteen,
correct?”

“Well, now I'm seventeen,” he said, seriously. It felt
good to distract both of them.

She was quiet for many seconds. “I knew that. Victoria gave
you a kiss, with one to grow on.” She laughed as she said it.

She began to climb the next flight.

“Tell me again why you're seventeen. That sounds
interesting.”

OK, she wants the distraction, too.

They climbed flight after flight, led by the light. His mom asked
a lot of questions about his journey over the past several weeks, as
he did of her. But always they avoided their shared loss or talk
about what his mom and dad were involved with. The entire climb was a
mental relief valve after all the stress they'd suffered of late.

When they got to the highest floor they stood in front of a fire
door with a large number 42 on it. That particular number held
special meaning for him. Years of reading books brought him to this
moment. A joke only he would appreciate.

“The answer to life, the universe—”

“And everything,” she added.

He jerked his head to look at her. She smiled and winked in the
glow of her flashlight. The question was what troubled him. There was
so much he didn't know about the woman who raised him. How much would
be answered on the other side of 42?

She grabbed for the door handle…

John Jasper wasn't sure if he was still a general or not. He
hadn't been formally relieved of duty, though being tossed into a
ditch full of zombies surely counted as some kind of unofficial
paperwork. His uniform had been ruined in the muddy ditch, so his
“uniform” today consisted of his black boots, a pair of
loaner multicam pants, and a clean white t-shirt, also a loaner. The
lack of military decorum troubled him, but he needed to be easily
seen by the men and women he'd rounded up to help with defense. He
figured when his next paycheck showed up, he'd know if he was still
in the service.

Inwardly he smiled. The thought of a mailman dropping his check
off here in this miserable town was a hoot. Seeing his charges on the
nearby levee brought his serious face back.

“Come down here, guys.” He spoke into a hand-held
bullhorn.

A gaggle of citizens had gathered to help with the defense of
their town. Without his own men and military hardware guarding the
northern approaches to Cairo, it was only a matter of time before the
whole thing came crumbling down. Unless he could get these people to
do the work of the mixed battalion Elsa had taken away from him.

He estimated there were a few hundred people. On the left, it was
mostly townsfolk. The group was largely black, and consisted of
able-bodied men and women dressed in old t-shirts and dirty
pants—like they'd come to do some work. On the right, the crowd
was more mixed. They were the refugees taking shelter in the town. As
Marty Peters had said, many of them were teenagers and young adults.
Those who had previously been hunkering down—hiding, he
suspected—in the abandoned houses of the town. He'd found
volunteers to
encourage
them to come here today.

“Listen up. The Army had to go put out other fires. Help
other towns.” The truth was the Army abandoned them, but he
didn't think that would motivate anyone. “They left me here to
help you organize a defense.” As expected, there was rumbling
in the crowd. “Listen! Look at what they left you. How many
towns in America have a fifty-foot ditch filled with water protecting
their front gate? How many towns have huge rivers on the remaining
three sides? There is nowhere better, I guarantee it.”

That was likely true. If Elsa was correct, those with the fancy
bunkers had given them up on the East Coast so they could move to St.
Louis. That might make St. Louis a safer bet in the long term, but he
doubted it was very safe at that exact moment. Getting these people
the truth seemed important after all the lies he'd been told. He'd
survived politically-motivated career threats, and had done fine
navigating the end of the world up until his toss on his ass, so he
was ready to fight for this town. He needed them to fight for him,
too.

“They abandoned us! They threw you out. You aren't even a
general, now.”

Damn. It had to be you.

The mayor had promised not to get involved, but of course he
couldn't leave it alone. The sweaty man stood in the middle of his
constituents on the left side of the group. Everyone erupted in
conversation at that.

He used the electric megaphone to emit a loud screech, which
quieted most people.

“Your mayor is correct. I was tossed out. I didn't want to
abandon your town. I ignored my orders to leave you.”

The mayor wouldn't know the details of his separation from his own
troops.

“You can ignore my help, but believe me when I say I want
you people to live. I want this town to survive.”

There was some commotion up on the top of the levee. Most of the
crowd had moved down so they could stand and sit in the tall grass,
though a few were up top. A woman in a wheelchair was speaking,
though not very loud.

“I can't hear you,” he replied.

“She said she wants to hear your ideas,” a man shouted
from the side of the woman. The little woman waved to him and gave
him the thumbs up.

Marty Peters. Thank you.

Having an ally was important in any battlefield situation, but
he'd never imagined it would be a little 104-year-old woman who could
help him through this. The crowd clapped in agreement.

“The framework is here. Everyone with a gun needs to be on
this berm behind me.” He pointed over his shoulder to the big
pile of dirt stacked in front of the water feature. “We line
the top of that and we can shoot each infected person as they're
approaching on the flat farmland just on the other side.” He
wanted them dead
before
they reached the water-filled ditch.
When he was swimming down there he noticed there was no current.
Every body that fell in there would stay there. Get enough
bodies...and the advantage would be gone. It would take an incredible
number to fill it, but not an insurmountable number. Not with
millions heading his way…

The biggest problem after manpower was firepower. The idiot mayor
had spent years of his term ensuring guns found no place in his town
limits. Now, when they needed them most, the mayor insisted the
military be trusted with the task, not his people. John wondered what
he had to be thinking at that precise moment when he realized he'd
screwed himself.

On the other side, the refugees had come in with pretty much
nothing but the clothes on their back. The group from up north that
had come in on the Osprey had a few guns, but St. Louis wasn't a
bastion of gun culture, either.

Only the people who got here from nearby farms seemed to have
guns, though most of those were shotguns. Suitable for close
encounters, but not for headshots from the top of the berm.

And ammo. He figured anyone that had a gun would have consumed
ammo to get to Cairo. And Cairo had no gun stores...

Bottom line, no matter what these people wanted him to do, he was
already missing a key ingredient necessary for their mutual survival.

2

John walked up to Marty in her wheelchair, and cordially shushed
away the teenagers by her side.

“Thank you, Marty.”

After selling his plan to the townspeople and refugees they all
separated to return to their homes and prepare. A few men stayed to
guard the berm. They were the “Zombie-Killers” the mayor
had complained about days earlier, but the truth was they were the
only ones already prepared to defend anything. They were too few,
however, to truly guard the northern approaches. But the dozen men
and women with rifles had become his most effective fighting force.

Marty shook her head. “I didn't do anything but tell the
truth. If a general tells me how to defend my town, I'm going to
listen.”

“You'd be surprised how many times people refuse to listen
to reason. Politics. Race. Religion. They all cloud judgment in one
way or another. The mayor believed guns would be the death of his
town up until this moment. You think he learned his lesson?”

Another head shake.

“But thank you, anyway, for backing me up. I think most
people now realize where we are. Too many zombies and not enough
us
.”

“Thank you for staying. I've seen a lot of brave people
lately, but a lot of scared ones as well. You could have left us and
no one would have been the wiser. Surely a general could be useful to
that convoy out there?”

He looked at the diminutive woman in the wheelchair. She was
wrinkled and aged, but her eyes were sharp. “It crossed my
mind. I won't lie to you. But Elsa and her allies scare me.”
John looked around to ensure no one was listening. Most people had
crested the levee and walked down the hill into town. “If she
can commandeer U.S. Army troops and jettison a two-star general with
no repercussions, she has more power than I do. Even if I found my
way back to friendly troops, I don't think she'd let me enjoy the
safety.”

A little louder, he continued. “No, I'm staying right here.
Find out who I can trust. Bide my time until an opportunity presents
itself for me to pursue
her
. But first—”

“You have to defend little old ladies in wheelchairs.”

They both laughed as he grabbed the handles of her chair and
pushed her toward the Gator. Her teen friends waited there.

“Do you think they'll be able to fight?” They were
both pointed toward the subjects of his question.

“I'm old, General. I don't know what anyone will do,
anymore. People either fight, or they don't. If you'd asked me three
weeks ago if Liam would fight, I would have said probably not. Like
these kids, I always saw him on his smartphone, computer tablets, and
whatnots. It was all he ever talked about. If things had been
different, it would have been him sitting in those houses back there,
tapping his screen. They all have it in them to fight. He showed me
that.”

“I've seen the kids we get in boot camp, these days.”
He sighed. “Maybe I'm getting too old for this.
Look
at
them. They look like children.”

“I was thinking the same thing about you,” she
giggled.

“Oh, so you
do
have dementia? I'm old enough to be
your son.”

“Maybe, but don't underestimate these kids today. Every
generation looks on the next with fear they will break all that had
been built. It's natural to think it.”

He worried that the time of building was gone.

“I need them to fight. I need to find weapons.” He
spoke softly, as they were getting close.