Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs (26 page)

Maybe I'm not dreaming.

She was in the woods where Liam had dragged her.
In fact, Liam was still at her feet. Asleep against the tree. He was
translucent, like a ghost. She looked at her own hands and arms, but
couldn't see through herself. She was real. Or he was.

“Liam. Are you awake?” She reached
down to shake him, but he wasn't just transparent, he was hollow,
like a projection. “OK Al, where are you?”

Again she raised her arms. Instead of the thin and
wrinkled skin she was used to seeing, her arms were a little more
full. A little more...young. Not teenager young, but she had been in
her body for 104 years and knew its wear marks. Perhaps a spritely
90.

Her body wasn't tired, and she felt fine in this
place. She started walking the little ways back to the highway. It
was the same mess it had been when they crossed it. Cars. Bodies.
Junk. No one was visibly walking in the night air, though the moon
was helping illuminate the scene.

There was a campfire, with several men and
women—all translucent like Liam—sitting around it. She
felt compelled to go check it out.

They were some of the well-worn travelers she had
seen passing this way earlier in the day. She couldn't hear what they
were saying, and she was quickly distracted by a young girl walking
from the other side of the group. She was the only person who noticed
her walking up to the fire; she was also the only one solid like her.

“I saw you come out of the trees. Are you my
guardian angel? Momma says we have angels looking out for us, even in
the bad times.”

The girl was saying the word “angel”
in a funny way. She said ahn-gyel, as if the word was foreign to her.
She cringed at the condition of the poor thing; she appeared to have
been having rotten luck. It's enough to be traveling at the collapse
of mankind, but the girl had a bald head and a sallow look. Cancer?
Something serious to be sure.

“No, dear. I'm no one's guardian angel. I'm
just an old woman out for a walk. Who are you?”

“I'm Clara. I've been walking all day
looking for my mom and grampa. Do you know where they are?”

“No, I don't. I'm sorry. How old are you,
Clara?”

“I'm this many.” She held out her hand
with four fingers. “But I'm almost this many!” Again, the
fingers came up, five on display this go-round.

“That is
very
nice, Miss Clara.”
Marty knelt down in front of the child, an act impossible to do at
her age.

Dreaming or really sleepwalking this time?

“Can you tell me, what are you doing out of
bed?”

The little girl appeared to think about it. “I
get up sometimes when I'm asleep. My mommy made me go to sleep and I
saw her and grampa in my dream. Grampa was OK. I was OK. But then the
bad man came in and pushed me down. I had to go away. Why did he do
that? Where's my mommy now?”

The tone of her questions made her appear every
bit as scared and weak as she probably felt. Her sickness only added
to her misfortune. Marty couldn't make herself ask the child what
disease had made her sick. She didn't want to make her feel bad. She
figured they would both be disappointed when they got back to their
bodies after being in this place.

“Oh Al, why did you show me this poor girl?”

“Who are you talking to, lady? Can I talk to
them, too? Are you talking to Grampa Bart?”

She held her pose, expecting Al would make himself
known. When nothing happened she let out a soft sigh. “I
sometimes have a friend—”

“Grandpa Bart? Is your mom by chance named
Janey?”

“My mommy's name is...mommy. I think Grampa
calls her Janey. Do you know where to find my grampa? He said he was
going bye bye.”

She had her answer. It
had
to be the same
man. Marty last saw Bart laying on the floor in the back of the MRAP.
He'd been asking for his granddaughter Janey the whole miserable
trip. Now this little girl was looking for her too, as well as
Grandpa Bart. Liam told her about Bart's fate as they escaped the
camp, but she wasn't about to tell this sweet little girl her beloved
grandpa was gone forever. But she was troubled by the need to lie to
her.

“I'm not exactly sure where your grampa is
right now, my child. Do you know where your mommy is? Maybe she can
help you?”

“My mommy comes to my dreams too. And Grampa
Bart. We play together. Grampa is so silly. But where are they? I'm
scared.” She was talking quietly while using her right hand to
pull at her right ear. It was a nervous affectation.

“Come, my dear. Sit with me a while. We'll—”

As she stood there talking, her little friend
winked out of existence.

“—be just fine.”

Marty didn't wake with a scream. She simply opened
her eyes and was sitting on the ground against the tree. Most
uncomfortable. Liam was next to her, just as he'd been in her dream.

Her mind was swirling with questions about what
she just witnessed. But there were no answers to be found in the dark
and buggy forest that night.

3

They woke early on the morning of the eighth day
since the sirens. The late June air was already heavy in this wooded
area, and heating up. With nothing to eat or drink, they were
immediately prepared for the continuation of their journey.

“We need food and water.” Marty was
standing against the tree, looking marginally more stable than she
did last night.

“Can you walk if I hold you?”

“I guess we have to try. Don't want to die
in this forest.”

Ain't that the truth.

But where should they go? Liam knew this area to a
degree because of his time in Boy Scouts. Beaumont Scout Reservation
was over the hill and in the valley beyond. He'd been there many
times growing up, as his dad was a Boy Scout leader and had insisted
Liam participate. It gave him an opportunity to do things “in
the real world” as Dad would say. Tie knots. Fish. Camp.
Survive.

“If we can make it over this hill, I think I
know where we can find clean water. The Boy Scout camp has an
artesian well that should still be pumping out water. After that we
can work on finding some food.”

The only tools Liam had to work with were his
pistol and his pocketknife. He used the knife to fashion a crude
wooden cane for Grandma. He would hold her on one side, and she could
use the cane on the other. That way they might be able to minimize
the strain on her leg muscles while they went over the hill. He
briefly toyed with the idea of making a stretcher to pull her behind
him, but he knew it would take him a long time to fashion anything of
that scale. Better to get as far into the woods as possible while she
could still perambulate.

The woods were rough on Grandma. Many times Liam
asked her to sit down on a rock or log, and she never rejected him.
He knew he was pushing her hard going this way, but they had no
better options.

To keep her mind off her struggles, Liam tried to
keep her talking. He laughed at the irony after all the years of
avoiding speaking to her. She recalled many things Liam classified as
minutia from her life, but she also recounted her experience from the
previous night.

“I had a strange dream last night. A lot
like the ones with your grandpa, but he wasn't in this one.”
She described the little girl and everything they discussed.

“I don't know what to say, Grandma. Maybe
the sick girl means the world is sick? Or that you are sick?”
It almost made him choke up to say it. “I sure hope you
aren't...”

She laughed. “I may not be sick, but if you
keep pushing me like this I might die of exhaustion.”

They took another rest while they talked. “I've
been having a lot of these dreams lately. I never had anything like
them before the plague started. I have to believe the two are
related. Al—I mean your Grandpa—told me this has to do
with good and evil, though I can't quite fathom how.”

Alarms rang in his mind. He'd done too much
reading about how the world ends in zombie bloodshed. Maybe this was
more of a supernatural battle, played out with the spirits of the
undead walking the Earth? “You mean like God and the Devil
fight it out in the streets? Tribulation? That sort of Biblical
stuff?”

Marty was standing there, deep in thought.

“Grandma?”

“Oh, sorry. I really don't know. Everything
your grandpa has shown me has pointed to Biblical stuff as you call
it, but my heart isn't sure. Why did he pretend to be your grandpa?
Why not just approach me as an Angel? Why would God be concerned with
finding a cure for a plague? What does the little girl have to do
with anything?”

Her statement was left hanging in the woodland
breeze.

Liam made as if to start walking again, before
saying, “Well I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a cool
refreshing drink of spring water.”

“That would hit the spot!”

Grandma was being cheery, but was suffering
horribly. Her bottle of Ibuprofin was sitting in his backpack in his
parents' basement. He took comfort she had no medications she
absolutely required each day. When she broke her arms several years
ago, her doctors were amazed to learn she had never been on any
long-term medications throughout her entire life. No cholesterol
meds. No high blood pressure meds. No blood thinners. No nothing. She
did need the rare pain relief for her back, but that usually only
flared up when she overdid herself. Like walking-through-the-woods
level of overdoing it.

Liam and Marty walked out of the woods a couple
hours later looking much as they had when they collapsed the previous
night. Exhausted beyond words. The only difference; it was only 10
a.m.

They were standing at the edge of the woods,
overlooking a narrow and flat valley where the Boy Scouts conducted a
great deal of camping trips, hiking, horseback riding, and big
gatherings they called jamborees. The camping area was about a mile
long, two hundred yards across, and very flat the entire length. It
was hard to see from one end to the other because of small curves and
undulations in the landscape, but they could see a good portion.

“Grandma, we found the mother of all
jamborees.”

Below them, tents of all shapes, sizes, and colors
were packed into every possible space. Nearest the road were a large
number of pop-up campers, buses, and recreational vehicles. It was a
spectacle of mankind that caught Liam completely by surprise.

They'd been standing there gawking for a few
minutes when he noticed they weren't alone. From behind them and from
the sides several young boys with long spear-shaped poles made
themselves known. An extra boy, trailing the others, was carrying a
rifle.

Marty was quick in setting the tone for this
encounter. “We surrender!”

Liam added, “take us to your leader.”

4

Fortunately, being a Boy Scout had its advantages.
Liam was able to remember the secret handshake and recite the Scout
Oath and Scout Promise. The others were impressed. They didn't say
what would have happened if he wasn't a Scout. The crew that
“captured” Liam and Marty elected to send one of the
younger boys as an escort so they wouldn't get lost.

The encampment was loosely centered around the
administrative building in the midpoint of the length of the valley.
A small wooded creek ran through the campground, and the building was
set just to the west of the waterway. Even so, the large building was
hard to see among all the colors and variety of living quarters
erected around it. The first camper arrived, set up shop next to the
main building, and everyone else spread out from there.

Contrary to expectations, they did not bring them
in to see “the leader.” The place was packed, as you
might expect when thousands of your closest friends are camping in
confined quarters, with hostiles on the perimeter, and food a scarce
resource. The only thing they had in spades was water. Boys of all
ages could be seen carrying water from the creek to fires on both
banks—likely purifying it.

A young Scout about Liam's age was walking by and
saw Liam trying to help Grandma along the pathway near the creek. He
immediately jumped in to help. The young boy leading them appeared
distraught, as if he should have volunteered to help first. He kept
walking.

“Hello. I'm Drew. How old are you ma'am?”

“I'm 104! Can you believe it?”

“Wow!”

“And how old are you, Scout?”

“I'm almost 15, ma'am.”

“And what brings you here?”

“We just got here yesterday. We were trying
to hide in our house, but Mom and Dad said it would be safer for us
here. We didn't know so many other Scout families had the same idea.”
He laughed a bit, but it sounded forced.

They crossed a small bridge over the creek and the
young guide told them to wait by a pirate ship. Liam thought he
misheard him, but sure enough they rounded a bend and saw a
fifty-foot wooden pirate ship. It was made out of lumber and was
intended as a place for young Scouts to play. The mock pirate ship
appeared to have run aground next to the water, and it actually made
Liam laugh out loud. It wasn't here when he frequented this place.
The Scouts probably built the ship as part of one of their many
service projects.

Their young guide asked Drew if he could leave
them with him, and he gave the boy a thumbs up sign. He then hauled
butt out of there, presumably to return to the woods to find his
mates.

“They organize new people at this boat. I
started out here, too. I guess it gives a well-known landmark for
orientation and other meetings.”

There were dozens of people sitting at various
places on the structure. Most were families with young boys, but
there were older people and young girls scattered around as well.

The Boy Scouts were nothing, if not organized. As
they approached the meeting area, two Scouts ran up with cups of
water, each trying to be as courteous and kind as they possibly
could. Marty gingerly downed what she could while Liam drank his in a
few rude gulps, followed by a gratuitous belch.