Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs
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Authors: E.E. Isherwood
Tags: #Zombies
Siren Songs:
Sirens
of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 2
Copyright 2016 and Published by E.E. Isherwood
In a multiverse of infinite possibilities,
divine
intervention is indistinguishable from dumb luck.
What if that's
intentional?
of Contents
Chapter 1: Somewhere in Suburbia
Chapter 7: Breakfast in Afghanistan
Chapter 9: Containment Failure
Chapter 12: Along The Watchtower
Bonus: First 2 Chapters of Book 3
Stop the Sirens
Stop the Sirens
: Prologue: Shush!
Stop the Sirens
: Chapter 1: Exodus
Parents
Three days since the sirens.
The pair of figures moved silently through the night. They stuck
to the darkest shadows and stayed far away from anyone—living
or dead—they encountered on their journey. Presently they were
in an urban residential neighborhood, very near their destination.
They were trying to stay focused as they neared their target.
Jerry was in the lead; Lana was twenty feet behind. It was enough
space to avoid both of them being hit at once in an ambush, or both
fall under attack from one of the infected. They'd survived shades of
both in their mission over the past twenty-four hours.
They were dressed in black tactical gear—long pants, long
sleeved shirts, each reinforced with extra padding—nearly
identical except Jerry also had ballistic armor on his chest and back
to give him extra protection in a gunfight. Lana chose to forgo the
armor in exchange for increased dexterity. Her slight frame made the
choice almost a necessity.
They each carried highly modified AR-15 rifles. Long lamented by
what Jerry was fond of calling the “propaganda media” as
weapons of war
, they were in fact nothing more than glorified
hunting rifles. That didn't mean they weren't deadly, but in a real
war these weapons would be laughed off the battlefield. This wasn't a
real war. Not in the traditional sense. This new reality was much
more complicated, with all kinds of nasty surprises. Having an AR-15,
or something like it, was as much a survival tool as any shovel.
These AR-15s had all the accessories favored by the mall ninjas such
as flashlights, rails, slings, as well as something uniquely suited
to the new reality—the bayonet.
Their kit was rounded out with backpacks, webbing to hold extra
magazines on their person, and even head mics so they could whisper
to each other at twenty feet. They had some food and water, but those
were easy to find in the city. Their most precious commodity was
ammo. They'd blown through half of it getting to this point. They
encountered lots of infected roaming the city. The remaining living
people were either cowering in fear inside their homes waiting for
help that would never come, or they were out and about causing
trouble in the chaos while there was still time. They'd run into some
of those as well. Most who were able had left the city over the past
few days. They'd also heard the stories about the battle at the
Arch—which took place earlier that day—from survivors
who'd made it out. The whole city was spiraling into oblivion, not
even sparing the crown jewel of the city.
These two weren't just depending on their “tacticool”
gear to get them through this challenge, they had each trained on
their guns in the months and years leading up to the collapse. Jerry
wasn't ex-military, but he had studied military history all his life
and had striven to emulate the excellence of the men and women in
uniform. Thus he and his partner—his wife—were
well-prepared for what they were doing.
They were on a rescue mission. They were inside a dying city,
under constant threat from tens of thousands of infected men and
women, and an equal number of criminals, gang members, and the insane
who couldn't handle what was happening to their world. It was
literally the last place on Earth they wanted to go, except it was
where they hoped to find their son.
2
Under the light of a partial moon, they approached the target
building they'd been searching for on this street. As with the rest
of the city, there was no municipal power supplying this block.
Earlier they'd observed looters tearing up a dead power transfer
station. They were also working on stripping the dead transmission
lines, perhaps thinking they'd be worth something when the recycling
centers opened again.
Jerry approached the back door of the target house first. He noted
the rear screen door was mangled and lying on the ground. The rear
wooden door was still closed. Lana joined him, both focusing their
lights on the door in front of them.
“What happened with her door?”
“Doesn't look good. Maybe an infected tried to get in. Let's
hope it failed.”
Before either could make an effort to open the door, they were
attacked from out of the darkness by a plague victim. Clad in a
light-colored nightgown, she was easy to see once she was out of the
shadows. The sick woman fell upon Jerry and pushed him over.
“Get her off!”
Lana was quick. She managed to hold onto the nightgown of the
woman and ensure she couldn't get a solid purchase on her husband. At
the same time, Jerry was able to keep his chest armor facing the
teeth of the zombie. They had a temporary stalemate.
“I'm going to roll over and push her off. You know what to
do!” It wasn't the first time on this trip they'd had this
exercise.
“Go!”
Jerry used all his strength to push the thrashing woman over to
his side and scrambled away. Lana raised her rifle, intending to
skewer the zombie—and she hesitated.
“My god. This is Angie.”
The nurse was an absolute wreck of her former self. Once a
well-manicured sixty-something-year-old friend and nurse for Jerry's
grandmother living inside this house, she was now covered almost head
to toe in blood. Her nightgown was especially filthy with blood,
dirt, and god knows what else. Her eyes were blood-red in their
sockets and her hair was well matted and mangy. Her skin was ashen
gray, where it was exposed. It was amazing they could recognize her
at all, even though the couple had known her for decades.
The shock and surprise and resulting delay gave Angie the chance
she needed to pull herself off the ground, gain her feet in a
crouching position, and begin rising—
—only to be forced back down by Lana's steel bayonet.
She grunted hard as she shoved it in as far as she could. The
blade sunk until the point of her barrel was inside the infected's
skull. Both stared at the dead body in stunned silence, given the
identity of this dead woman.
“Angie. I'm so sorry.”
Jerry said nothing. Frozen in place.
Lana broke the trance, pulling her blade out with effort. “Let's
get inside. Now!” she ordered.
Jerry had a key. As he rifled through his many deep pockets, he
happened to notice a flash of light inside the house. At first he
thought it was Liam or his grandmother, but caution nagged him. He
stood still, indicating Lana should also be quiet. Though it had been
there the whole time, the noise of gunfire around the city came
reminded Jerry of the worldwide pandemic beyond this yard. He
couldn't risk losing focus on the moment.
“What is it? You see Liam or Grandma inside? Do they need
help?”
Jerry turned off his light, and Lana followed suit. Instead of
pushing the door open, Jerry backed away, drawing his wife with him.
They moved to the narrow walkway between the two red brick
structures. At the first window he paused, and peeked into the glass
frame. Inside he could see a light bobbing up and down, very slowly.
It was difficult to make out details, but it looked like someone was
standing around with a flashlight, though it was pointed down at the
floor.
Lana took a turn at the window and came to a similar conclusion.
They also both agreed it was a large man, not their son, and
certainly not their hunched-over 104-year-old grandmother.
“So who is it?”
3
They went from window to window, trying to glean intelligence on
the figure standing in Grandma's kitchen, but the farther forward
along the house they went, the less they saw of the mystery man.
Standing at the front door they whispered their next moves.
“Whoever is in there is apparently sick. No one normal would
stand there so oblivious. He had to have heard us fighting Angie.”
“Yeah, and if Liam was inside, he would be standing out here
with us already.”
Jerry began to lay out his plan. “You stay up here and knock
loudly on the door in sixty seconds. That should get his attention.
I'll be at the back door, so when he walks away I'll enter and then
see what I can see. You run back and watch my behind.”
She gave him a wry smile at the innuendo, despite the seriousness
of the hour. She disappeared into the night.
Their plan worked as expected. The knock on the front did indeed
coax the big man into the front of the house. Lana walked in the open
back door and was hit with the stink of death. It wasn't
overpowering, especially since they'd been passing badly mutilated
bodies for the past two days, but it was present.
She moved up to be with Jerry, slipping on something—blood.
She couldn't see it in the darkness, but she knew what it felt like
to slip on it. Jerry was looking up the hallway deeper into the
house. The mystery man was somewhere in that direction.
He turned around and gave her the “shush” symbol
across his lips. He had his rifle out. He flicked on the flashlight
attached to the barrel and then turned around and yelled up the
hallway. “This is Jerry Peters. Identify yourself!”
He saw the flash of light in the front room. A sign the man was
moving.
The big man lumbered into view.
“Stop or I shoot!”
Jerry knew the man was infected. The small flashlight revealed all
the blood on his face and neck. It was an unmistakable indicator he
was already dead from the Ebola-like plague ravaging the city.
The gunshots were loud inside the tight apartment.
The infected man fell over and slid a short ways on the slick
floor. He came to rest not far from Jerry's feet. He shone his light
down at the man—revealing a wrecked skull, heavy bulletproof
vest, and the same type of black tactical clothing Jerry himself was
wearing. The flashlight was attached to the man's shoulder with a
thin rope, as if he wanted to ensure he was never separated from it.
Jerry's light also reflected into a nearby bedroom. From his
vantage point he could see the leg and shoe of someone lying on the
floor in there. His heart choked and fluttered; the shoe reminded him
of the style Liam wore.
“Lana, I—” He couldn't say the words. Instead,
he moved rapidly to the bedroom. “Cover the hallway dear, while
I check out this first bedroom.”
He entered to find a veritable morgue. A dozen bodies were tossed
into a pile, all with bullets to the head. They'd been murdered—as
healthy people—because none of them were bloody like the
infected. He knew who some of them were. He scanned the bodies, but
didn't see his son—that was his only focus. The person on the
floor with shoes like Liam's was...someone else. The piece of Jerry's
brain taking care of emotions clicked off. He closed the door to the
bedroom as he left.
“Lana, don't go in there. We have to keep looking for Liam.”
Room after room was empty. He walked beyond the dead—contractor?
He didn't know how to describe the man. They went upstairs to Angie's
apartment and found another dead contractor inside a pile of bloody
clothes in the middle of her apartment.
Still, no Liam.
They finally went into the basement. Liam had his room down there,
but other than the dryer sitting in front of the rear basement door,
the entire level seemed undisturbed. They both returned to the main
floor, heading for the big dead man.
Jerry searched the body, but found no identification of any kind.
He had numerous pockets in his tactical vest and pants, but those
were mostly filled with rifle magazines and various types of knives,
batons, and handcuffs. Not a contractor, a policeman?
He did find one clue. Several sheets of paper stapled together and
folded multiple times—beyond what any normal person would have
folded them. Jerry unraveled the papers and spread them out on top of
the dead man's chest. Using his light both he and Lana were able to
scan the names typed in three neat columns. A few were crossed out
with a pencil. He knew many of them. Actually—