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

“Oh no. This list has most of our family on it. What he hell
is this?” He scanned the names, finding one he recognized. “No.
No. No. This is a list of people someone is trying to kill.” He
scrunched up the paper with his hands, wrinkling it into a little
ball with a primal grunt.

“Why? How do you know that?”

Jerry looked up with anger in his eyes. “Because my brother
is in that room—dead. And his name is crossed off.”

He held it out to her, and she walked into the kitchen. She
unfolded the paper and spread it on the table where she could get a
better look at it.

“There's my name. Your name! We aren't crossed out. Nice to
know we're still alive.” She let out a nervous chuckle. She
read the names to herself—mostly family she recognized—from
time to time lamenting those with their names crossed off. “Here's
Marty's name. She's alive thank God! At least she hasn't been, what?
Assassinated?”

Jerry grunted an affirmation as he stood up and moved next to
Lana. He didn't want to know who else was on the list, and yet he had
to know.

Lana turned the page. Then she turned once more. On the third page
she found her son.

“No line! Liam has no line over his name.” Lana set
the flashlight on the table, and turned to hug Jerry. “I'm so
sorry about Craig.”

“Thanks. Me too.” Jerry gently separated himself, and
looked around. “Looks to me like these men were hiding in
Marty's place, waiting for our family members to come collect her.
When my brother arrived they must have killed him and tossed him into
the room with the others I didn't recognize. If they were targeting
our family, maybe these other people just wondered in.”

“Friends and neighbors of Marty?”

“Yeah, that would make sense. Who wouldn't come by to check
on Marty if they knew her?”

“OK, so this hit team, or whatever it is, is lying in wait
for us. Somehow they got infected, so we just dodged that bullet. But
now we have a list of our family members, all of whom seem to be the
target of some criminal enterprise, and we have a son out in the
apocalypse who has no idea he's on this list. Where the hell is he?”

“If I had to guess, I'd say Liam took Grandma and tried to
escape the city.”

Lana raised her head so she could look at the face of her husband.
“How do you know that?”

“Because her guns are gone. I noticed when we searched
downstairs they had been moved.” He pointed his light at the
black box sitting on the stove top. “I left her two guns in
that box, hidden in her rafters downstairs. Because they were so
high, there is no way she got them herself. Since the house isn't
otherwise looted, it means someone pulled them down who knew they
were there and what was inside. That means she told Liam and he has
them. And because they aren't here, it tells me they're armed and
attempting to escape this town.”

“I'm not sure if I should be jumping with joy or screaming
in fear.”

“Me either, my love. Me either. But at least we know these
creeps didn't get him.”

Jerry didn't want to appear pessimistic, though he certainly felt
it. Whoever made the list was still out there. That suggested Liam
wasn't safe at all. But that wasn't even the dangerous part. Liam had
gone off into the urban decay of St. Louis with his 104-year-old
grandmother. At best he had a couple of little handguns to defend
himself. The dead were walking, killing everyone left alive, and the
police, fire, and other civilian infrastructure lay in ruins.
If
Liam could get out of the dying city, and
if
he avoided
getting himself scratched off this list, and
if
he survived
the other million dangers, where would he go?

They only needed a few seconds to reach the same conclusion.

“We have to get back home.”

Fifteen-year-old Liam Peters had just survived the worst four days
of his life. He'd killed zombies. Been shot at. Was nearly run over.
Ran from gangs. Ascended one of the longest flights of stairs west of
the Mississippi. Rode a train through swarms of zombies. Saw friends
die. Dodged falling bombs. And, if he had to stretch things even a
little to mimic
World of Undead Soldiers
—his favorite
online game, he'd say he slayed the undead and other supernaturals to
rescue a buxom maiden.

Looking at her now, Liam admitted Victoria wasn't very buxom, and
strictly speaking
they
rescued each other
, but he allowed some liberties in
retelling his own story. She was also a filthy mess. When he'd found
her she was wearing an elegant black cocktail dress she'd worn since
her survivor story began, and over the course of their escape from
the city she'd gotten filthier and filthier. Now she was covered in
black coal dust from their stint on the train, and it was nearly
baked on from all the running and sweating they'd done to get away
from the horde of zombies this morning. She wasn't much to look at
right then as far as a damsel to be rescued. If he had a mirror he
assumed he looked just as bad.

Fortunately, he could overlook all those things and simply see the
pretty young woman who captured his heart over the few days they'd
been together. She was sleeping peacefully next to Grandma, both
lying at the foot of a large sycamore tree on the near the bank of
the river they'd just crossed. A large mass of zombies could still be
seen on the other side, although a majority of them had wandered away
since there were no easy pickings anymore.

Liam shivered when he looked across at the horde on the wrong side
of the river. He fancied himself an expert on zombies. He'd been
reading zombie books and watching zombie movies since he was a small
child. Probably much earlier than was reasonable if the parenting
experts were to be believed. It did give him plenty of reference
material to explore the behavior of these plague victims, though he
was quick to realize real life was much more random than any book.
Sometimes luck played as much of a factor in survival as preparation.
It's something you can't appreciate until you've seen death within
inches, only to have it pass by harmlessly. Liam resolved to cherish
every second he had with Grandma, and make every effort to be a
stand-up man for Victoria. He'd seen too many men give up, fade away,
or just go crazy over the past few days. He knew just being there for
her would be more than most men could provide in this new existence.

So what do we do now, Mr. Expert?

Liam had been working on that problem since Victoria laid down to
sleep. Was that an hour ago, maybe two? He looked at his watch and
saw it was nearly noon. Noon on the fourth day since the sirens.

He didn't know exactly what they should do, but almost every book
he'd ever read on zombies made it clear the only way to truly survive
in the long run was to find a strong group of like-minded
individuals. Not that he was being choosy back in St. Louis, but he'd
dropped in with a group of St. Louis city policemen as they escaped
the city last night. It maximized his own odds for sure, though
getting out was still a very close affair.

Once on this side of the river, many of the police and other
survivors had scattered, in a hurry to get wherever they needed to
go. The only officer he really missed was Jones, the beefy black cop
who laid down his life saving a large group of survivors. He had
nothing against any of the remaining officers, but they all had
families and were quick to be moving on. Liam needed to go somewhere
specific. Home.

He looked at the roadblock and only saw a handful of local cops, a
couple police cars, and a mish-mash of other survivors loitering
about, as if unsure where to go next. It was a new day. A new part of
the world. A new adventure. It was just like setting out in his
online gaming world.

Except in this world you don't get to start over if you die.

2

Marty was asleep. She knew it right away. She was standing in her
backyard. The lush green grass contrasted with the fresh white paint
of her standalone garage filling the scene before her. She left her
real house days ago, and now she was standing in her yard, as it was
decades ago when she first moved in.

“Hello again, Marty.”

It was her husband, Aloysius—Al for short. Well, it looked
like her husband. An angel? The being had helped her earlier this
morning as she lay dying on a bridge being chased by a horde of
infected, though she couldn't recall the specifics of that encounter.

“Why can't I remember our last meeting? I know we met in
this...dream world...and you gave me something to say to Phil from
his dead wife. But what?”

“Ah yes. I told you I'm not really supposed to help one way
or the other for it could upset the balance of this world in
unexpected ways. I can mitigate that ethical dilemma somewhat if you
yourself don't remember the agent of that unbalance. Since I'm in
your head already, I can—make adjustments.”

“So you're scrambling my brain? It’s already old and
scrambled I'm afraid.” She laughed a little, but it was true.

“I needed to bring you here, Marty. And I'm sorry to do it.
But you have to see the world for what it really is if you're going
to save it.”

In front of her, where a second before there was nothing, she saw
her nurse and friend Angie. Dead with a large hole in her head. She
had become infected and was largely responsible for forcing Marty out
into the world with Liam.

“I want you to see her. Truly see her, and those like her.
These—infected—are the future of the human race. Look
closely.”

She only saw the blood. So much of it. Many infected people had
blood oozing from their eyes, ears, and noses—as if they had
some terrible equatorial disease such as Ebola. But it was so much
worse because the victim never fell over and died. They just kept
walking around, trying to spread the infection as far and wide as
possible. She felt horrible Angie had to be the example for this
demonstration.

“Yes, I'm sorry too. But what if I told you that because of
an unfortunate series of dangerous coincidences, the trajectory of
the human race has been changed so it will now die in obscurity on
this planet? Every last human being is destined to stand around
staring off into space with nothing of any value inside their
brains?”

“I'd say you were describing every new generation of kids
that has come along in the previous hundred years. I should know!”

“So right you are Marty. But this would be the
last
generation, ever. And the members would all look like poor Angie
there. Until the sun burned out, the only humans surviving would be
those like her. She would have seen the sun die if she wasn't shot.”

“Impossible!”

“In an infinite multiverse, nothing is impossible.”

She looked at Angie again. “Not that it matters in the short
run, but surely they'd wither away after a time?”

“No, these terrible creatures are imbued with a power both
terrible and wonderful. That same power which allows me to talk to
you here is also responsible for—'animating' people like Angie.
That energy is practically infinite, which means the sickness will
last for eternity.”

“They'll live forever?”

“They'll die forever, Marty. They're dead. But we aren't
going to let that happen. There is a cure. You will find it. Of that
I'm certain. You're already on the course right here and now. I just
need to tweak your memory a little. I can summon a little more of
that—energy—to help you collect your third partner.”

Ha. A cure? She had considered that at the start of the outbreak,
but it seemed impossible once she realized the condition of the
infected. How could a body recover from such trauma? And what of the
mind? What was Al saying about energy and such? Marty admitted he
often spoke above her.

Al walked closer to her, not in a menacing way, but with purpose.
“I'm sorry again, Marty, but I have to show you something. It
will be uncomfortable to watch.”

“What is it? Is someone in trouble?”

“There you go again, thinking of others. But this time
you're right, someone
is
in trouble. They're about to die.”

She looked at him and was dismayed to see how uncharacteristically
serious he'd become. Something bad was coming. He leaned close. She
heard a car engine approaching. It was a sound she recognized. He
began to whisper.

“This is how Victoria dies.”

And then she saw it happen.

3

Grandma woke with a start. “OH MY GOD!” She heaved
sideways and tumbled into the sleeping figure of Victoria next to
her.

“Grandma, that's the second time today you've woken up
saying that. What kind of dreams are you having?”

She looked around, initially unsure of her surroundings, but
quickly gathered her wits. Last night she'd almost gotten them all
killed when she woke up screaming those same words while zombies were
lurking around their group. “I think there's a cure to this
thing. I think I'm a key part to learning the secret of that cure.
I've been told—”

She appeared to force herself to think, but to no avail. “He
showed me...things.”

“Grandma, if I didn't know better I'd say you've been
reading too many zombie books.
Of course
that's what they tell
you. 'There's a cure' and it’s up to you and your merry band to
find it and save mankind. As if there's no one else in the world
searching for a cure but two kids and their grandma. Who told you
that? Was it the same person who told you about Phil's wife?”

Just this morning she seemed to glean information on a police
officer's dead wife and daughter “from beyond,” which
helped them negotiate their way to safety over the bridge—but
that seemed like a miracle. This seemed more like misinformation. A
distraction.