Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs (38 page)

She then went on to organize some men and women around Liam's
house, and together they got the drop on a group of hostile men
intent on taking Liam's house from him. The ensuing firefight was
brief but intense. She proved her worth, though she ended up killing
some of the wounded hostile men. She said it was to prevent them from
coming back to harm them when they healed up. In his brief interludes
of quiet thought of late, he'd wondered how Phil and his parents had
agreed to keep her around after what were essentially battlefield
executions. She was still with them, and going strong it seemed.
Victoria said she helped organize the resistance on his whole street
earlier today. She was probably very familiar with the people now
dead up there. Bottom line, Liam was inclined to listen to her.
Apparently everyone else agreed. So they waited.

They were rewarded for their patience less than twenty minutes
later, when the sound of propeller-driven aircraft could be heard
approaching from south of them.

“Everyone down!”

The trees near the creek offered some protection from above, as
did the mute color of all their clothes after being in the muddy
water, but they didn't want to take any chances of being seen.

They were impressed when two big planes slowly flew over their
positions, and began tilting their wings so their propellers were
facing straight up. The ungainly looking planes descended like
helicopters to land on the large parking lot where Hayes' copter had
departed hours earlier. The back ramps dropped and Army men poured
out. He could see about twenty per plane.

“What are Army men doing here?” Liam asked.

Melissa was watching the drama with everyone else. “Not
Army. The planes are V-22 Ospreys. Troop carriers. Those are US
Marines.”

Marines. Great.

“Liam you must have made quite an impression on someone,”
Mel quipped.

He could only wonder. Were they sent by Hayes to clean up his
mess? If he had them on speed-dial, why not send them first if he
really wanted to capture Grandma without incident?

The Marines spread out in careful formations, alternating with
each other to various positions until they were up in the ruins. It
became difficult to see what they were doing, there was a lot of
smoke wafting around from smoldering fires, but they didn't appear to
be searching any specific piece of the street.

“We should leave this place. They have to be looking for
us.” As his dad would say, sometimes they really
are
trying to get you. His instinct said run.

Phil was quick to agree. “Any competent police sweep we ever
did would investigate any nearby hiding areas for survivors. This
ditch will be high on their lists once they start fanning out.”

Liam's parents seemed most reluctant to leave, but they were
pragmatic about it in the end. Maybe it was shock. They slid away
with everyone else.

The creek provided an easy route to slip away unseen. They
followed it to a wider branch which went underneath a nearby roadway.
Soon they had the entire road between them and the Marines. Next to
the road was a thick woodland. They stayed low, got into the woods,
and took stock of things.

Melissa gave her assessment. “We're probably safe over here,
but I'd vote we go deeper into these woods just to be sure.”

Jerry agreed but added one important request. “Once those
guys leave, we have to go back and grab our stuff.”

Liam looked at him like he was crazy. “Dad, our house is
gone. There is no way your supplies survived that inferno. I'm sorry
but its true. We should never go back if we think all is lost. It
would be a big risk. Right?”

Phil and Melissa looked at each other, each with big smiles on
their faces. Melissa seemed to be bursting to share her secret.
“Liam, I know your house is a smoldering ruin. I'm sorry about
the loss of your friends and neighbors, and your grandmother to that
ass Hayes. But we've been busy beavers while you've been away.”

Dad added, “We have a survivalist/prepper, a US Army
veteran, a police officer, and two whip-smart women on staff. Do you
really think we'd leave our most important treasures sitting in our
basement for anyone to take if we thought government agents were
coming to our house to capture you?”

Liam thought about it for a few seconds, realizing the
implications. “No, I guess I don't think that at all.”

For a brief time, everyone was laughing again.

3

The Marines weren't there long. The lumbering Ospreys were
impossible to miss as they left. The group waited a suitable time and
then returned to observe their street from a different vantage point.

“You think they would keep someone behind as a lookout?”

“Doubtful Liam, I don't think any agency has the resources
to fly aircraft in and out more than the absolute minimum. Marines
are used when they want to kill or capture someone. Special Forces
are used when they want to observe undetected. Or assassinate
someone.”

“Thanks Melissa, you are a real pick-me-up!”

The spirits of the group had simmered back to a disheartened
baseline after the rush of dodging bombs, dragging themselves through
creeks, and hiding in forests. Now they were heading home—to
see if anything more than splinters was left of the Peters'
residence. Looking at the neighborhood, Liam wasn't hopeful.

The remains of the street itself could be seen here or there,
sometimes in remarkably undisturbed stretches of flat surface, but
several bombs found purchase smack dab on the road. The resultant
craters were impressive. Those big bombs had flattened all the houses
in their immediate area, and the follow-up fire bombing had burned
everything in the area to ash. Even the cars and trucks were empty
hulks of fire-bathed steel. No one knew what kind of explosives had
been used; Melissa said Napalm had been outlawed against civilians
though there was no consensus of what constituted “civilians”
when half the population was technically dead.

Liam's father tried to be pragmatic. “All we know for
certain is that this street was considered such a high value target
the military was able to task several planes, unload significant
amounts of ordnance, and send a couple platoons of Marines to make
sure it was erased. All those resources would probably have been more
useful fighting the zombies right now.”

Liam and his father hadn't had time to catch up on all that had
happened to them both since the sirens, but Liam took the opportunity
to share the most salient bits of his struggle. “Hayes gave me
a warning as he was taking Grandma away in the helicopter. He told me
the planes were coming, giving me time to escape. He said it was a
detail he couldn't overlook, since I'd spared his life and the lives
of his men. But he said nothing about why he needed to bomb us clean
off the map. A Colonel I met in the government medical camp said he
was responsible for deploying the strikes on other camps when
containment failed. The planes were designed to erase all threats
posed by the plague.”

All threats.

Liam's memory was jogged by his own statement. Several days ago he
stood on a riverbank and wondered if his father knew the collapse was
coming. He sent Liam to live with Grandma a few weeks prior to the
outbreak of the plague, and she turned out to be an important
objective to the CDC. Just a coincidence?

Liam pulled his father aside as they were walking through the
ruins. “Dad, did you know the outbreak was coming? Is that why
you sent me to live with Grandma when you did?”

His dad looked at him like he had grown a second head. “I
sent you to live with Grandma because your attitude this spring was
getting so bad both mom and I were arguing over which one of us would
get to kick you out of the house when you turned eighteen. Your mom
won that argument by the way.” He gave a slight smile,
continuing. “We decided we couldn't take a full summer of the
yelling and screaming, so we asked Grandma if she minded having an
extra helper around. We figured if nothing else she wouldn't be as
affected by your attitude, and because she couldn't hear well we
didn't have to worry about you being too loud around her.”

That made a lot of sense. It was exactly the kind of statement
he'd expect from his father. he also realized his dad hadn't exactly
said no. Instead of pushing the issue, he moved on to a pain he knew
they both shared. “I'm sorry I let Grandma get away. She said
to tell you and Mom she loved you.”

His father put his arm over Liam's shoulders. “I'm sorry you
both got you mixed up in all this intrigue. It's bad enough escaping
from the zombies, but you were tough enough to get Grandma to safety
even with all these other people trying to catch her. I'm real proud
of you. In the end it was just bad luck that ruined your plan.”

Liam had no doubt in his mind his father was on the up and up
about loving him and wanting him to be safe, but there was something
in his tone of voice that told him something more was on his mind.

“Here it is!” Liam's mother had found the stake in the
ground, signifying the location of the cache of weapons and material
they had stashed in the woods. It was near a small but dense tree
which still had a lot of branches on fire.

“Behold, the burning bush.”

Victoria's exclamation startled him. He looked around and noticed
this small tree was the only such tree burning in the entire area.
Other trees were smoldering, but this one still had flames on it. He
stood staring at it.

“Liam, the burning bush from the Bible is where Moses was
given the task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt.”

“OK, so who is Moses here? And where is the promised land?”

They had all stopped what they were doing and looked around at
each other. It suddenly seemed like a legitimate question. Was it
Liam? He seemed most likely after leading Grandma and the others to
this place. Was it Jerry? Liam's father was capable and had also made
a trip into and out of the fallen city. Or was it Grandma? She seemed
to be a solid candidate given her age and her devotion to religion.
Liam would be happy if it were anyone but him. He didn't judge
himself a capable leader.

Unlike the Bible, nothing was clear cut in the real Apocalypse.

Phil finally spoke up. He was pointing straight down.

“Right now these weapons are our Moses. They're going to
lead us out of this wretched place, maybe not to the promised land,
but to somewhere safer than this.”

Almost in unison, they all replied with a hearty “Amen!”

4

The day ended with everyone huddled in the woods for protection. A
small pile of supplies had been exhumed, including guns, ammo, and
even Liam's backpack.

The bombing did its job and cleansed a wide area around the street
of everything—including zombies—but more had stumbled in
after the fact. Of course they took their sweet time and didn't come
until
after
the Marines left.

Liam shared what he'd learned in the Boy Scout Camp, especially
how they whittled stout sticks into nasty spears used to puncture the
skulls of the zombies. “The key is to kill them with the
minimal amount of noise so we don't keep bringing in more. A spear
isn't as sexy as a gun, but it's free, it's plentiful, and it works.
It also keeps the zombies at a distance while you do your thing.”

As they all tried their hands at making adequate spears, and
dispatch the odd wandering zombie, they were pleased to see a few
neighbors did survive the assault. One of them was a man who lived
several houses up the street from Liam. He was old and gray, and had
a serious demeanor almost all the time. Liam remembered him from his
youth as the guy you never wanted to tangle with.

His name was Paul.

“Me and the Wright's from across the way were standing on my
lawn when those birds first came through here with their cannons. I'm
as big a fan of our military as anyone, but it was a sound of pure
evil. Of course everything got all shot up, but luckily they were
shooting right up the middle of the street instead of in the lawns
and houses. Well I guess unlucky if you were standing in the street.
I saw one man—I didn't recognize him—just stand in the
street and then evaporate. Just evaporate. Poof!”

The stern man almost showed emotion at that, but continued. “Well
you can bet your ass we started running. Everyone scattered into the
woods. My old legs wouldn't carry me faster n' a wounded dog but I
never looked back. Them bombs hit the bottom of the street and worked
their way up, so I had a little extra time. Lucky me. Others were in
the woods too, running much faster. Most haven't come back. Maybe
they ran into the dead walking toward the sounds of destruction...”

Paul also explained he came back because he had nowhere else to
go. No family. No friends. Nothing. Not even a pet.

No wonder he's a sour man.

It made Liam feel slightly better to know there were some
survivors out there. Even crusty ones. He felt bad enough for being
responsible for Drew's death. He'd given up hoping his friend
survived once he saw the area he'd last been standing. There wasn't
even a body to bury.

They didn't light a campfire for fear of being seen. They salvaged
some stout patio chairs which had survived everything, and used those
as a base camp of sorts. It at least gave them some place to sit
besides the ground. For the first time in a long while Liam could
relax in the company of his family. The whole group was in hushed
conversation with those around them.

Victoria was sitting in the chair next to his. Perhaps it was
coincidence, but the young couple was given extra room by the others.
He was looking at his her. When she noticed him, she leaned forward
to quietly talk. “We have to do something to get Grandma back.
I feel horrible all this happened because of me.”