Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs (18 page)

Oops.

Just people stuff.

Liam was back in his seat, listening to the group chatting like
they were sitting at a coffee shop hopped up on the caffeine. He was
vigilant for clues tying them all to this journey, but few were
forthcoming. He settled in and absorbed the life stories of his
fellow passengers.

All the excitement made him forget something important for just a
little while.

Victoria is gone...

That was it.

Another hour ticked by. The truck was never going very fast, and
sometimes it would stop for a long time while the gun was in
operation or was being reloaded by the men up front. They were let
out one more time in the early morning, greeted by a light drizzle.
It seemed to refresh the passengers and their conversations exploded
as the journey continued.

Liam absorbed as much as he could, but those folks could really
talk when they wanted to. He still had nothing to go on in his effort
to solve the mystery, even after a couple hours enduring waves of
information. They were starting to repeat themselves as they shared
their same stories with other companions. Even Grandma seemed to
revel in the data dump.

For a fifteen-year-old boy, it moved quickly from exciting to
boring beyond belief.

He turned inward. Sitting in the back of the truck reminded him of
his zombie books. Survivors were rounded up in the hot zone and
brought to the safety of the “compound” where they could
find safety and comfort. When the rear doors of this MRAP opened,
would they be greeted by a friendly face welcoming them to their new
home?

He didn't think for a second this was an altruistic mission.

He then thought of his military history. He'd seen a dramatic
recreation of another group of men sitting in the back of a military
truck in the old days. They were traveling as prisoners of war in
wintertime during the Battle of the Bulge, fought near the end of
World War II. When the back flap opened they were greeted by German
special forces, and they were anything but friendly faces. They
dragged the men into a clearing and shot them all—a massacre.

Did he believe they were heading for a massacre? Part of him did.
But they could have been killed at any point in this journey. They
could have been killed in their homes. Why bother with the elaborate
transport? Maybe they have to keep it secret?

He felt panic somewhere deep inside him trying to get his
attention. Were these cold-blooded killers? They'd killed Victoria in
cold blood.

Was it really cold blood? What does that even mean?

They killed her because of me.

He felt his emotions going haywire. Panic. Regret. Anger.
Confusion.

He tried to force himself to go to sleep. End the fistfight taking
place in his head.

Sleep remained elusive. Much blood was spilled in the long mental
battle.

The truck rolled on.

5

Liam's thoughts were interrupted as the world slanted.

The truck dipped its nose down a little and slammed into
something. It wasn't going very fast, but the mass of the large truck
and the flat bench seats worked together to send all the passengers
toward the front of the vehicle in a brief but violent jerk.

Those in the front of the truck had it the worst. They were pushed
against the webbing separating the front compartment while
simultaneously absorbing the weight of the passengers behind them.
Because Liam and Marty were closest to the doors, they suffered
almost no ill-effects.

The Gatling gun on top came to life. It seemed pissed, spinning up
in long pulls.

The men in the front of the truck were yelling. The radio was
squelch city. The MRAP seemed stuck on something. The engine was
roaring, the tires were spinning, but the thing wasn't moving.

The plinks of shell casings rattled on the roof while the clangs
of rounds bouncing off the exterior were plainly evident.

Where the hell are we? Afghanistan?

The Gatling continued making long sweeps with short intervals of
downtime. The operators up front were yelling about overheating, ammo
consumption, and target selection. The noise was dizzying. He tried
to help some of the others get back in their seats.

Impossibly, a few minutes into the firefight the back doors popped
open. Hayes was hunched down just outside the truck, as if trying to
avoid the rain. “Liam, you and Grandma will come with me. Now!
Bart, you will be picked up next.”

He considered the wisdom of that statement, but Grandma was
already on her feet. She made the decision for him. After several
long seconds of helping her out, they were standing at the back of
the MRAP, surrounded by a thick blanket of white smoke. Smoke
canisters were laying on the ground in all directions, belching out
the smothering layer of safety. The MRAP itself was also cranking out
smoke. Liam wasn't sure if that was due to the crash or a protective
feature of the vehicle itself.

Standing out in the open, he was assaulted by the sights and
sounds of battle. The buzz saw sound coming from the top of the MRAP
was the most distinctive, but he could hear other machine guns from
the Humvee's, as well as the sounds of guns being fired from a
distance. Those were the attackers—whoever they were.

Hayes had a Humvee pulled up almost to the back of the MRAP. He
hurried the pair toward his ride.

Liam didn't know how to process all that was happening.

In one moment he heard the whipping sound of a bullet streaking
through the air nearby.

Then two more. Close.

He heard several rounds smack the outside of the MRAP.

The Gatling was freakishly loud.

In another moment he heard and saw a bullet sink into the tire of
the Humvee he was approaching. His mind recalled some television show
which explained how these vehicles had special tires which would run
even if flat. So much time to think in those few seconds of
running...

Hayes made no effort to slow down as they moved toward the space
where the bullet just passed. There were several cracks already on
the windshield. “Get her in the front seat! I'll be in the
back!”

Once inside, with the doors safely closed, the Humvee began
moving. Liam and Grandma were crammed together in the front seat,
staying as low as possible. Hayes was in the back, along with a
person they couldn't see fully. He was standing upright and was
poking out the top, operating the machine gun mounted on the roof. It
was hammering away, dropping shells both inside and over the outer
surface of the truck. The driver was the redhead woman. She didn't
have her hat on this time, her wavy red locks were down to her
shoulder. After looking over to ensure everyone was in, she ripped
out of there—as fast as the Humvee could accelerate.

“What about the others?” Liam didn't want to leave the
whole group inside that truck, though he had to admit he was glad he
chose to sit at the back of that thing so they were pulled out first.

“The other Humvees will get them out. If they can push back
the looters maybe they can free the MRAP too. A good mine-resistant
vehicle like that isn't something we want to abandon.”

“Wait. Those were looters?”

“This whole trip we've been attacked by them. They see us as
a threat to their ability to steal and destroy everything in this
part of the city.”

Liam had seen looters destroy everything that held together the
fragile safety zone in downtown St. Louis at the Arch.

As the Humvee cleared the firefight and smoke, the machine gun up
top stopped, the driver slowed to safe cruising speed, and Hayes gave
them the all clear to sit up. Finally, Liam would get a look to see
the new landscape they'd been trying to reach for so long.

His mouth dropped when he saw where they were.

Is this for real?

6

After a full night and morning of riding in the back of the MRAP,
Liam imagined they were somewhere in Texas, or even Maine. Instead,
they were on a street Liam recognized as being less than thirty
minutes from his house. They were still in a suburb south of St.
Louis.

“Are you kidding me? This is all the farther we've gone?”

“I guess I can't blindfold you now while we go to our secret
lab, can I?”

Liam gave him a harsh look.

“Oh, lighten up, Francis. We've been avoiding roadblocks,
traffic jams, and hordes of zombies since we left your house. It
takes time to plan routes, feed more candy to the dragon riding on
top, let your friends out to pee, and keep ourselves from getting
bogged down in massive throngs of the infected. It would be easy to
get trapped forever in one of those groups. Traveling in the
apocalypse is not like going to school with the text-and-drive crowd
you're used to. It's gotten complicated.”

He hated admitting the guy was making sense, but...

“So then where are we going?”

Hayes was pointing to a nearby park a mile or two up the road,
across the interstate. Liam knew where they were now, so he knew the
destination, if he was being told the truth. It was a huge wooded
park designed around a herd of elk the locals kept penned there as an
attraction. Liam had been there once as a young boy and could
remember absolutely nothing of the trip. It only stuck in his memory
because it was close to the highway and every time the family drove
by it, Mom and Dad would reminisce about that earlier trip. They
would always ask if he remembered feeding the reindeer, to which he
replied many times, he didn't. Then Dad would take his cue to bestow
a biology lesson, starting with “did you know they aren't
really reindeer?”

I wish you guys were here now.

Before his mind could start warming up for a fight, he tried to
coax more information from Hayes, though there was a powerful part of
him that couldn't help but respond with snark.

“Are we going to feed the reindeer?”

“Ha! Those elk are probably already dead. People are going
to be hungry. And no, we aren't going to feed them.”

The Humvee sped along the road underneath the main interstate
highway in the area, wasting no time with any of the desperate
hitchhikers running their way. The highway itself looked like it was
a bombed out parking lot. Many cars were smoldering, while others had
their doors hanging open, abandoned. There were quite a few people
walking around, though it was impossible to tell through the dirty
and broken windows of the Humvee whether they were alive or dead.

A short drive on a side road brought them to the gate of the park.
Nearby was a large wooden sign with faded white letters which
informed citizens they were about to enter Lone Elk Park. Unlike most
parks in the area, this one was practically unique in that it was
surrounded by a ten-foot wire-mesh fence high enough to both keep the
elk inside, and keep other species of deer on the outside. It
wouldn't keep out a determined human who could easily climb it or cut
it down, but it would be ideal for keeping mindless zombies out.

Until they were so numerous they pushed the fence down
.

Liam knew that story had already been written. No fence was
impenetrable. He surveyed the barrier as they drove through the gate
and to his untrained eye it looked pretty solid. Solid enough for
today.

They sped along a narrow road until they came to a clearing next
to a small man-made lake. Instead of elk they were greeted with
several immense olive drab tents and many smaller flanking tents.
There were also a few other Humvees parked randomly in the complex,
plus a few civilian cars. A gaggle of guards were jaw-jacking near
one of the big tents, but that was about it for people. No one was
walking around outside, which Liam took as a good sign. No zombies
were here. For now, whatever project was taking place here was under
human control.

The clock is ticking...

Liam suffered from an overdose of pessimism. The past twenty-four
hours had been nothing but down for him. Really everything had been
down since he kissed Victoria at the sycamore tree two mornings ago.
Would that end up being the high point of his life going forward?

Hayes got out first, then opened the front door for Liam and
Grandma.

“It isn't Fantasy Island, but welcome anyway.” He
swished his hand in a dramatic gesture as if to show them the entire
facility with it. Liam helped Grandma get out of the high-clearance
truck and set her upright as he held her next to him. He noticed she
was leaning hard.

“Let me show you to your tent. This way please.”

Liam was struck by the silence of the place. After the constant
din of the MRAP, and the battle they'd just escaped, his brain was
suffering in the absence of loud noise. He could hear birds tweeting
softly all around them, and the rustle of nearby tree leaves. It was
only disturbed if he listened very hard for a soft hum coming from
one of the larger tents.

They walked a short distance to one of the smaller tents. It was
still a very large affair for someone used to a four-man tent his
family used for camping. It was about twenty feet across and looked
like heavy canvas construction. There were full-length flaps on all
four sides, allowing a person to walk in from any side. All were open
but the one in the very back. It was hot enough they needed the
airflow.

As they got closer he noticed there were several cots in the tent,
and most of the cots had people lying on them. He tried to get a
better look, but when they were at the threshold of the front tent
flap Hayes stopped them. “This is going to be your new home for
a while. I told you back at the bridge we're going to protect you
two. You will be safe here. I'm sorry for all the—ah—unpleasantness
getting to this point. From here on out you're home free.”

Liam didn't want to sound too pessimistic in front of Grandma, but
he'd read enough zombie books to know how silly that statement
sounded. He cranked the sarcasm all the way up. “You realize of
course this whole camp is going to be overrun, and we'll probably all
end up dead or zombies. You know that right? You brought us here for
nothing.”