Zombies Ever After:

Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6

© 2016 E.E. Isherwood. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

From E.E. Isherwood

Since the Sirens

Siren Songs

Stop the Sirens

Last Fight of the Valkyries

Zombies vs Polar Bears

Zombies Ever After

Post Apocalyptic Ponies

Post Apocalyptic Mustangs

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Zombies Ever After Introduction

We last saw Liam in Zombies vs Polar Bears as he prepared to leave the den of the patriots in downtown St. Louis. He wasn't interested in civil war—he just wanted to get back to Victoria.

Victoria, meanwhile, took some time to herself to reflect on the past she left behind in Colorado. While investigating the third floor of the Whitaker research lab on the campus of her university, she came across a video feed showing her dorm room. An old acquaintance called to her from the darkness…

And Grandma was still in Cairo, Illinois. She became a pawn between General Jasper and Elsa Cantwell, but now there's nothing but zombies in front of her and the defenders of the town.

Book 6 begins with a look back at how John Jasper found himself in the watery ditch north of Cairo.

Welcome back.

E.E. Isherwood

September, 2016

You wrecked my truck, boy.

You ate my dog, boy.

Have you lost your mind, boy?

When our love died, my heart shattered.

But my soul escaped, boy.

Now you run from me, so run, boy, run.

--Midnight Foxes (found scratched on basement floor)

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: Run, Boy, Run

Chapter 2: Midnight Foxes

Chapter 3: Tracers

Chapter 4: Homecoming

Chapter 5: Bathed in Fire

Chapter 6: Trust Issues

Chapter 7: Run, Girl, Run

Chapter 8: Victoria's Secret

Chapter 9: Mile 444

Chapter 10: Freefall

Chapter 11: Warfighter

Chapter 12: Gator Ride

Chapter 13: JDAM

Chapter 14: Jane

Chapter 15: Fighting Retreat

Chapter 16: Chloe

Chapter 17: Debbie's Double Barrel

Chapter 18: Secret Mission

Chapter 19: Uptalk

Chapter 20: John Wayne

Chapter 21: Threat Level 5

Chapter 22: Simple Solution

Chapter 23: Elma Jean

Chapter 24: Non-Linear

Epilogue

Musings of an Author

About E.E. Isherwood

Other books by E.E. Isherwood

Connect with E.E. Isherwood

Prologue

Major General John Jasper sat on a hard chair. He'd been tied to it by the same team that captured him on the levee outside of Cairo, Illinois. He had a bag over his head, reminding him of any number of interrogations from his time overseas. There, he was on the other side of the cloth. The hours of monotony gave him plenty of time to think about what he did wrong. Explosions and gunfire rattled the room from somewhere close by. His men were out there, fighting.

Elsa and her team had bagged him while he maneuvered the ad hoc battalion of Army units near the big ditch to the north. For some reason, she wanted all his men outside the town, though his military brain could fathom no legitimate reason for doing so. The Paladins were not well-suited to direct fire. That's why he had them among the houses to the south, so they could rain the hurt on the zombies as they came over the interstate to the north. Keep the fighting miles from population, instead of at the front gate.

Homeland Security had taken charge of all military operations inside the continental United States, getting around Constitutional roadblocks, as part of the government's response to the zombie outbreak—he'd long since given up trying to call them by other names—and her role in Homeland gave her direct control of his units. Up until that day she'd deferred to him on tactical issues. He never imagined she would relieve him of duty. How many other two-star generals could she tap here in Nowhere, USA?

“I did everything she asked, and she still sacked me,” he thought. Though, being totally honest with himself, he knew what he did wrong.

“Mrs. Peters. I shouldn't have gone to see Mrs. Peters.” Elsa never prohibited his movements, but she did suggest the 104-year-old woman was her prisoner. By all indications Elsa had made every effort to kill her, which was confusing as hell, since she was supposedly cured of the zombie plague.

And then you broke her out.

It seemed the chivalrous thing to do. Marty Peters had gone loopy from heat exhaustion because Elsa had cut her air conditioner power cord, and the temperature in the room had gone into the stratosphere. If he hadn't gone there, she would be dead.

“So what's the score, general?” he said to himself. “Elsa knows where Marty came from, and knows the doctor who cured her. That doctor went AWOL; then Marty shows up in Cairo. Elsa finds the old woman and locks her up, intending to kill her. Why? She wanted me to go track down the good doctor. Why?”

Nothing made sense. Zombies. Elsa. Cures, or no cures.

Elsa wasn't who she said she was. He was sure of that. Homeland Security was led by boot-licker bureaucrats whose idea of “security” was patting down toddlers and feeling up women at airports. Obviously, they failed in epic fashion in preventing travelers from bringing in the plague from overseas. He was far from a patriot in the vein of the Patriot Snowball movement, but he didn't believe for one second they were capable of causing the zombie plague. His sources all insisted it came from overseas. Homeland dropped the ten-thousand-pound ball.

And that's why she wants to blame old ladies and rogue administrators.

So, Marty Peters was the good guy. Whatever else she had going on, she was an enemy of Elsa Cantwell. That made her his friend, though it didn't elude his steel trap mind that his biggest assistance to his new ally was getting himself relieved of duty and tossed out of the Zth World War, just when it was getting important he be there with his men. She was probably back in her prison room by now. Or dead.

He tried for the hundredth time to jiggle his hands in the bindings. Unlike the movies, he was unable to free himself and make a heroic escape. Before all this, he was comfortable in his desk job—a few years from retirement and the good life on a tiny wooded lake somewhere—and his physical training had been a bit lax. That was costing him, now.

A door opened, then closed. Someone had come into the room. He tensed up, listening.

“Hello, John,” a female voice taunted.

“Good—” he didn't know if it was day or night. “—morning?” He'd been taken at dusk, and it felt like days since he'd been hauled away.

“Not quite.” Elsa pulled the bag from his head. He was in the same room where Marty had been kept. The dirty motel was near the front gate of the town, which explained how he heard the fighting over the levee, to the north.

And Elsa had completely changed. Far from the attractive, but reserved-looking blonde woman he'd known since she arrived in Cairo, she had transformed into—

“You're undoubtedly wondering why I'm dressed like this?” she nodded to him as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room. He couldn't take his eyes off her, despite his inability to properly focus, or his general disdain for her.

The woman was in her thirties, but had the body of a woman in her twenties. She looked like she had just come from the gym, where she apparently ripped up the StairMaster as well as the free weights. She wore tight-fitting black capris and a similarly tight orange sports bra. But now that he could see the silhouettes of her powerful legs and the muscle definition on her arms, he could see she'd been a wolf-in-sheep's clothing all along. He was focused on her mind, and the dumb decisions she seemed to make. It never crossed his mind she was as strong as this…

“Did you know eight of the ten women in my graduating class were CrossFit champions in their respective countries? I was top girl for several years in my home country of Iceland. Look it up sometime.” She laughed. “You probably thought I was a pushover, and that's why you didn't respect me in our meetings, or when you went to free Mrs. Peters from this detention facility.” She swept her arms around the room.

“I didn't know this was a prison.”

“No, I guess you weren't as smart as I'd hoped. Maybe losing you won't be the blow I thought it would be.”

He couldn't help feel the sting of that statement. Elsa's six-pack abs drew his eyes when he should have been paying attention to her words. He missed some of what she said next.

“...and that's why you're here, John. I told you I needed someone I could trust to do what was asked of them. You've gone off the reservation. Now you have to pay for that, I'm sorry to say.”

He looked up, to her cool blue eyes. With the blonde hair he really could imagine she was from Iceland, though her English was flawless. “I thought she was a threat. I had to see for myself. But she's just an old lady. All I did was get her medical help.”

He was telling the truth, though now he was glad he set her free.

While she responded, Elsa untied the rope around his feet, then his hands. “John, there's so much you don't know, I wouldn't know where to start. Homeland Security has many branches, and the division I work for has been planning for this event for a long goddamn time, and you and that old lady aren't going to mess it up for me. That's the main thrust of what this is all about tonight.”

As the ropes came off his hands, he imagined himself lunging at her and putting a stop to whatever it was she was doing, but his old arms had been bent backward, and the soreness prevented him from moving them quickly to his lap, much less using them to tackle her.

Her quads bulged in her stretch pants.

“I know what you're thinking, John. Can you take me? Well, Major General, do you think you can take down a helpless little girl like me?” She laughed, knowing his impotence at that moment.

“It's not very fair. I can't even move my arms.” He tried to convey bravado, but the truth was still unflattering to a career soldier. He finally got both arms to his lap and rubbed his hands to restore blood flow.

“I'll tell you what I'll do,” she said as she walked to and opened the motel room door. “If you can get by me in the next sixty seconds, I'll let you go on your way. If you don't, I'll kill you.” She giggled. “Sounds fun, doesn't it?” Her smile was evil.

He took a deep breath and continued to rub his hands. The feeling was just starting to come back.

“Fifty seconds left, John.”

“Give me a second.”

“You don't have many of those left. You aren't getting out of this door.”

Another ten seconds went by. He tried to stand, which went better than he assumed it would. He plopped heavily back down. A plan formed in his head.

More hand rubbing. “Why are you doing this? You can't off a two-star just because...”

He hoped that was true. It would have been accurate before the sirens.

“That's what I've been trying to tell you, stud. I can do whatever the hell I want.”

But why? Who the hell are you?

“Thirty seconds left. Tick tock.”

John imagined himself doing the actions, knocking Elsa down, then running for his men. Maybe he could convince them to arrest her. It wasn't very clever, but most military actions succeeded when they were dead simple.

“Wow. Nothing? Are you just going to die there? I'm so disappointed in you.”

He feigned having trouble standing. When he made it to his feet, he turned part-way around and pretended to lean on the chair back.

With a firm grasp in both his hands—still in pain—he lifted the wooden chair from the floor and turned as fast as his body would allow, throwing it the ten feet over to Elsa. In his head, he intended to follow the chair for a deadly second strike, but that turned out to be something his thirty-year-old self could have done. Not his current self.

Elsa was clipped on one arm. She let out an ambiguous sound, like air hissing, as she dodged. It took John several seconds to reach her. He knew he'd taken too long.

The smile on her face invited the challenge.

They met a few feet from the door, but Elsa dipped low as she put a shoulder into the side of his ribs. He tried to grab her.

What the!

His arms slid harmlessly over her oiled-up midsection. She'd positioned herself behind him and in one fluid motion put her arms around his neck and flung herself onto his back. He saw himself in the dirty mirror on the wall. A bemused look on his face signaled his acceptance of how this was going to go down.

Elsa's knees dug into his back as she pulled on his neck. The woman knew her stuff.

He let himself fall backward, praying he'd crush her. The stars in his eyes from her painful grasp didn't give him many options.

“I should have walked her out the door with her on my back. Then I would have won the bet,” he thought as he hit the carpet.

Things happened so fast he couldn't keep up. Elsa hung on but flipped around from his back to his front as he fell backward. He landed on the hard carpet, and she let go for a brief second but re-mounted a second later. She straddled his neck, so her strong legs trapped his head.

He looked up at his beautiful killer.

“Nice try, John. It restores some faith in my decision to bring you into my circle, though you ended up failing all around. Most people do. Half the people are below average, all the time, don't ya know? You can take comfort you have a long line of failures marching before you.”

His face was probably beet red, though he couldn't voice a witty retort. It didn't matter. Her thighs were crushing him.

“Good help is so hard to find, but I'll muddle through this.” She hunched over, bringing her face as close to his as she could. “I'm taking your soldiers, John. I'm taking them into the wild, and I'm going to use them up. I needed all your boys outside the fence so these dumb townies had no idea you would abandon them. And, since you won't be alive to explain, they will curse your name until they're all dead, too. Two problems solved, with the bonus that the fault is all yours. You will be forever known as the general who killed Cairo. Maybe they'll make a monument after this is all over.”

She didn't wait for a reply, though she called to someone outside the room. “Zeke, I need you to toss the general in the pit after I get all the soldiers beyond the highway. I want these people to have his body handy, so they don't come looking for him.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“We leave this dump in five.”

Chapter 1: Run, Boy, Run

Nineteen days since the sirens.

Liam halted between two floors of a St. Louis skyscraper. He pulled the backpack from his shoulder and set it on the floor. There was enough light from above he could see what he was doing. Looking down the dark stairwell, he'd soon need a flashlight.

He'd just left his mom, Travis, and Haylee on floor 42—they were all influential members of the Patriot Snowball—so he could get back to Victoria. On the steps, alone, he could think things through.

He put on the tan T-shirt given to him by Travis. It said “Yuengling Drinking Team” in big block letters on the front. It struck him as funny he wouldn't legally be able to drink for another five years. The Old World standards had likely been thrown out, though. He could probably walk in and get served at any bar, as long as he had something to trade. Paper money would soon be worthless. It hadn't crossed his mind much lately because there was nowhere open and nothing to buy. His cheap wallet was back in Grandma Marty's basement. He'd tossed it on his bed that first day after he came home from the library. It held his library card and an Imo's Pizza punch card. He was only two visits away from his “frequent pie-er” bonus pizza.

Mmm. Pizza.

He was near-starving. His mouth watered at the thought. Pizza and beer. Two joys of life now fading from the planet. He rooted through the backpack Travis gave to him as he left the lair of the Polar Bears. As he guessed, it had two of the energy bars—both strawberry flavored—that had been handed out by local governments at the outset of the collapse. Travis had packed three of the FEMA-issued plastic bottled waters, too.

His thoughts turned inward once he had the shirt on. He was on the cusp of doing something stupid, again. Leaving the safety of the group of freedom fighters so he could go out—alone—and run the streets back to Victoria seemed more and more insane as he thought things through. Was he doing it because he'd been dazzled by Victoria earlier that day when they were both alone in her old dorm room? He didn't like to think of himself a victim of circumstance, but it sure seemed like he was going back to her because he was “girl crazy,” or something.

It didn't change the fact he was crazy for her. He'd told Travis he'd tear the heads off every zombie between himself and Victoria if he had to. In the relative calm of the stairwell, that still held true. Given the choice of fighting in a war alongside his mom—even if he agreed with her—or going back to be with the girl of his dreams, he thought he was making the right call. His mom didn't need him. Victoria did.

No, she's stronger than you, Liam. You need her.

There it was. Did it mean he was growing up? Was it a sign of maturity to think being with a girl was more important than being with his mom? His mom had said something about being glad he and Victoria weren't together before the Zombie Apocalypse. It was a confusing statement when she said it, but with enough time to think about it, he accepted she was right. He'd disobey any order, curfew, or grounding to be with Victoria. Somehow that lessened his belief he was being mature about the whole thing, but the more he pictured her in his head, the more he was ready to go find her.

He admitted his reasoning was suspect, his schemes were clumsy, and his mom would not approve, but he was absolutely sure Victoria would be glad to see him walk through her dorm room again. Nothing could shake him from that vision, and that was all the green light he needed to continue with his journey toward her. Plus, it distracted from the sadness for his now-dead father, and probably-dead Grandma Marty. If Victoria died while he was off pretending he was part of a rebel army...it wouldn't be good.

He got up again and walked down the steps with grim fortitude. He only stopped once, to get out the little flashlight. He held that in his left hand, while he held a Glock pistol in his right. He kept the backpack and his AK-47 slung over his shoulders.

When he hit the ground floor—where he and his mom came in—he paused before opening the door. Such practice was common these days, so he didn't pat himself on the back for taking the basic precaution in the Zombie Apocalypse. But he was thankful of his caution because the lobby was half-filled by wandering zombies.

When they entered the building earlier, a good number of zombies followed—he didn't stop to count them—but he judged there were more of them inside the lobby than he'd seen on the streets around the building. Once again he was reminded of bloodhounds. Somehow the zombies he'd interacted with earlier in the day had found him. That was the only logical explanation. The infected always seemed to keep coming once they had victims in their sights.

He stepped away from the tiny glass window in the fire door. Pushing the door open and making a run for it was suicide. No amount of bravery or “girl crazy” energy was going to change that fact.

Do I go back up and pretend this never happened? I could be back by mom's side in twenty minutes. Play it off as a joke. Or, go down into the basement and look for a way out?

The calculus of his equation resulted in an answer of Victoria. The only way to solve all the variables was to keep going forward.

He snuck away from the door and flicked the light back on as he descended to the next level.

2

He'd forgotten something important about his arrival in the building. They came in through the glass on the ground floor lobby, but they took an escalator up one level. That's where they'd gone into the stairwell. From behind the window of the door, he looked out on the marble entryway and could just see the broken window next to the revolving door that opened up to the street outside. Pulling back, he could see the big letter G for ground floor on the wall next to the door. He'd been off by one.

There were zombies outside the door, but only a few. Compared to the floor above, it was a ghost town. Judging their position and speed, he visualized himself dodging them and exiting to the street.

“Don't open that door.”

A male voice from behind made him jump.

The small flashlight was enough to see the face in the darkness on the landing below. The stairs continued downward to who-knows-what. Fear and surprise had paralyzed him, so he was content to stand his ground and respond. He spoke just loud enough to be heard inside the empty stairwell, but, he hoped, not outside the door.

“You scared the crap out of me.”

“You can't let them in above. They already got in...below.”

Looking closer, the man had evidently crawled up the steps. The stairwell continued down on the left side of the landing, and the man's legs were hidden down the next flight. He had blood stains on his back.

“You've been bitten, haven't you?”

He laughed with a wet cough. “They're all dead, down there. I'm the only one on this side of the garage. Others might have gotten out through the main gate. And yeah, I'm done for.”

He scraped himself across the concrete and managed to prop himself up and sit against the wall. A smear followed him.

“Don't suppose you have a smoke?”

The man was middle-aged. He had scruff for a beard like he'd not been able to shave in ages. He wore a bright Hawaiian shirt, and in many ways looked very much like his dad.

Liam hopped down a couple of risers, then sat so he could talk in a quieter voice.

“I don't smoke. Are you with the people upstairs?”

He shook his head. “There are people up and down all these buildings. Tryin' to stay alive as best we can. My group was in the garage. We sent people out through the opening to scout for food and water. We also sent people up into this building, but it had been picked clean. Just ransacked offices.”

Liam wondered if the Polar Bears had done the ransacking. It made sense if the skyscraper was their base of operations for the city.

“Then we had one of our people—a young woman—come back from one of those snatch-and-grabs with a nasty scratch on her arm. Said it was done by one of them zombies, but she didn't get chomped. We fixed her up and thought nothing of it. Left her with her father.”

He knew where this was going. That morning he'd seen two of his fellow travelers get scratched and then...walk away. Like they'd been brainwashed.

“But she wasn't good to go. An hour later we found her attached to the neck of her dad...it was god-awful. But the worst part was what she did next.” His breathing was labored, but his voice was steady. “We naturally tried to pull her off—several of us—and she sprayed blood in our faces. One big exhale, and we were all infected. But it affected us in different ways. Some turned in minutes. Others, like me, are dragging it out. I had time to fight to protect my family...but in the end, it was—”

He choked up, planting a hand over his face.

In a whisper, he said, “Some of those things went berserk like I never seen before. Biting. Scratching. Spitting. It all happened so fast. A few dozen of us—all survivors of the worst of things the past few weeks. All fighters. The whole place was wiped out.”

“And you don't know if any got into the stairwells, or went upstairs?”

“No, it's just me. I had to—”

A big sniffle.

“—put down whoever I could.”

Well, thank you for that small favor.

He was concerned this would interfere with his desire to leave the building and find Victoria, but the man's answer told him otherwise.

“Will you do me a solid?”

“I'll do whatever I can.”

“Shoot me dead. I don't want to be one of them things. I don't want to kill anyone else.”

“But you haven't turned. Maybe you won't.”

“Everyone does, son. Everyone does.”

He thought of Grandma Marty.

Not everyone.

“I don't know...if I can.”

“Never killed anyone, huh?”

That was a loaded question. It all depended on whether the zombies were dead or alive, and whether he believed they could be restored to health with a cure. The honest answer was that he'd never put down anyone who wasn't a direct threat to himself or his friends and family. Putting a gun to the man's head in this stairwell would be something new.

But if he was infected, it was a matter of time before a decision had to be made.

3

Liam stared at the body. He'd haggled with the man, and finally, he loaned him his Glock. Now the back of the man's head was a messy stain on the concrete wall. The pistol had fallen to the guy's far side, giving him one more dilemma.

The gun had the man's blood on it.

Getting blood on him could be a death sentence.

Losing the gun to superstition could also be a death sentence.

The infection was everywhere, and nowhere. Getting bit was an immediate death sentence, but getting scratched also had some effect on people, though not everyone. He'd seen plenty of people fight hand-to-hand with zombies, and survive. He'd also been sprayed with blood, so that wasn't always the end, either. But the man had said there was something different down there. She spit blood at them. For some reason, that put fear in him that the blood on the gun was dangerous.

He took off his new shirt.

I need to travel with wet wipes!

Using a small pocketknife, he cut off one of his sleeves. It would provide enough material to clean the gun, but it would still allow him to wear the shirt. He wasn't fond of walking around in the hot sun without one. He'd done too much of that already. His shoulders were well-burnt.

The tan rag gave him what he needed to grab the gun and clean most of the mess from the grip. He was sure there were still microscopic traces of blood, but he hoped there wasn't enough to infect him.

With his shirt back on and the gun in his pocket, he ascended the stairs and went back to the ground floor window. He studied the outside for a couple of minutes until he'd convinced himself it was safe enough to make a run for it.

The door opened outward and was silent. His shoes were also quiet, but he couldn't stay out of the zombie's line of sight. The call went up from a few zombies on the ground floor lobby, which was echoed by a greater number of the infected up on the second level.

He avoided a couple of clumsy zombies near the broken glass window where he'd entered the building earlier that day, and ran into the bright light of the afternoon. Across the street, he could see the much larger hole where his mom drove the Tiger tank through the front lobby of that skyscraper. He feared there would be government agents—or even zombies—but the street was surprisingly empty.

The zombies followed him in the windows of the lobby, rather than exit through the broken glass. They were nice enough to box themselves in and give him a head start.

He took off at a jog.

Only six easy miles to Victoria.

Seemed simple, which was why he was on the lookout for anything that would cost him time.

The rhythm of the run soon captured him. He relaxed as he found his pace, and hit his stride running down the middle of the narrow urban street. His father, the marathoner in the family, had run these streets many times—and he'd been there to cheer. His current fears were the potholes and many open manhole covers, along with numerous corpses littering the route.

He breathed in and out, as evenly as possible. Nearly three weeks of poor diet and no sleep almost made him forget these basic things, but they came back soon enough. The pack and rifle made things a bit tougher, but it was a small price to pay for the ultimate protection on these streets.

Running by the glass frontage of a newer building allowed him to see himself in profile. Unless it was his imagination, he looked older, now. He appeared more competent in what he was doing. Running. Fighting. Thinking. He was sixteen, calling himself seventeen, and going on thirty. Dog years of the Zombie plague.

And what was behind those glass windows? As he ran by, he tried not to think about or look too closely in the windows. There had to be both survivors and zombies in most of the buildings around the city. His sincere hope was that all the buildings were locked, just like the one he'd exited. But, if zombies did run out, he was ready. His pace would keep him ahead of them.

He looked up. An irrational part of his mind pictured zombies falling from high up the canyon of skyscrapers, but there were none in the air.

“Just everyone stay inside, m'kay?” he said quietly, over his heavy breathing. The pack and rifle, and the uncomfortable way the Glock sat in his front pocket, had an effect on his endurance. He considered stopping for a quick break.

Four weeks of hard living and my base is gone...

At that moment a white drone buzzed by him from behind, about ten feet over his head. It drew his attention ahead, where he saw evidence of more zombies. A small park sat nestled along the street, between a large Greek-looking building and a row of parking structures. The drone made directly for that area and hovered and rotated among the zombies there.

He ran up to a newspaper kiosk—long since looted—and waited to see what was happening. Alternate routes formed in his head.

The drone was bigger than most drones he'd seen of late. It was about the size of a refrigerator, and looked like a small helicopter, rather than the style with fans on all four corners. It was very agile and seemed to work its way through the small crowd, avoiding the many trees with ease. After a few minutes, it raced off toward another block.

He took off at a run again. He stayed on the broad street but crossed to the far side so he wouldn't run by the infected souls inside the tiny park. They appeared to be lying on the grass and on the numerous benches surrounded by huge piles of garbage. He was too fast to get caught.

He was mostly right. The zombies didn't get up and run after him.

In fact, a couple of them waved.

4

Liam did a double take. The men—and a few women—were lying or squatting in piles of garbage stacked around the once-pleasant urban park. It was a long, thin park about one city block long with a crisscross of paved walkways and some glass-block sculptures that looked more like restroom walls than artwork. Old trees mingled with several telephone poles the length of the park. The dense canopy shaded the area.

He ran on for a few more yards but forced himself to stop. No real zombies were behind him, and whatever was happening here certainly warranted asking the question.

“What are you guys doing out in the open?” he shouted.

In response, several of the people shushed him, then waved him in. Seeing no immediate threats, he obliged. The closer he got, the worse the smell became. It appeared as if the group had scavenged through every dumpster in the city, and made sure to bring their prizes back to the park. Here he saw a huge mound of rolled up diapers. Next to it was a big pile of bones—from meat and fish, as best he could tell. Both piles were smothered by flies. Other stacks had bottles, cans, and newspapers, as if these people were conscientious about recycling. He tried to refrain from holding his nose, but when he got into...the trash fort, he had to pull his shirt over his nose to block the smell as best he could.

“Yeah, it grows on ya, lil' dude,” said a man of unknown age. He was filthy beyond words, with a beard down to his sternum. It, and his hair, and indeed all of him, was covered in blotches of ketchup, mustard, blood, and much worse. Only his voice gave a clue to his older age, as it was rich and deep.

“You live here?”

“Mmm hmm. Since s'start.”

The man's eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. Liam suspected the other people nearby were similarly affected. Perhaps there were toxins in the trash.

“How? Aren't the zombies here?” He was sure they were. He and his mom had driven the tank not two blocks over. There were plenty of zombies around, though he didn't see right then.

“Nah. Those sick dudes leave us...uh, alone.” The man pulled up his hand—which had been hidden—and put a hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth and took a deep drag, evidently satisfied. He puffed out the smoke, and Liam understood it wasn't quite a cigarette.

He searched his literature. There should be no reason these people survived this long if they'd been in the park since day one. The thought of zombies staying away from trash didn't add up. As time went on, they were becoming more and more filthy, too. Being out in the elements for three weeks, combined with never taking a second to clean oneself, would make anyone a mess. He'd been lucky he'd spent so many adventures in and along rivers, as that gave him the opportunity to “hose off” once in a while. Also, back in Victoria's room, they capitalized on some of her cleaning products.

The man was no longer looking at him and seemed to have no intention of speaking more.

“Hey! Sir?”

A slow turn. The man noticed him again. “Oh, yeah? I remember you. Got any papers?”

Liam looked around. It made no sense.

“No. I'm, uh, going to Forest Park. I saw you guys here and wondered why you haven't been...”

A couple of flies bounced to and fro on the man's beard. His eyes showed no hope that he would finish the thought.

“Well, you all should be dead,” he said with a tense laugh.

A couple of other trash people wandered over, including one woman—again, he couldn't give her an age beyond older than him and younger than Grandma—wearing a full-length sun dress with faded paisley swirls. It might have been pretty at one time, but now it was covered in the same filth as the man's clothes. Like she'd been collecting trash and rolling in what came out of each bag. But she also had something on her arm. A kind of big rubber band up near her shoulder. The lower part of her arm was purple. He was tempted to say something, but it was too creepy. Surely she had to know her arm wasn't right?

The man stroked his beard, which revealed a couple cigarette butts, a shiny blue pen cap, and a moving bug or two. He tried to focus on Liam. “We dead. Been dead for a lonnnng time.”

Liam took a step back, into a nearby pile of empty trash bags. He jumped when one of them yelped. A small mangy-looking chihuahua hopped out. It fared no better than its humans.

“Well, thanks for talking. I should get going.”

“Wait. Have you seen ma' husband?” asked the woman.

“No. Sorry.”

She cussed heavily, and angrily. The thrust of her complaint was that her husband took off with the drugs. Others nearby were similarly agitated by the story.

“Did you take his stuff?” she asked sadly.

“I don't know about that. Sorry. I have to go, really.” This time, he purposely stepped into the pile of trash, through the same gap he entered.

“Wait, kid,” said the bearded guy. He'd trailed Liam to the outer line of debris, and made like he didn't want the others to hear. After an impressive effort to steady himself, his eyes almost looked focused and normal. He expected to be let in on their survival secret.

“Do you have any papers?”

Liam had known a few stoners in school. The type of kids who smoked weed and partied hard on the weekends. Several of them, he found through friends, actually got their “agriculture” from their parents—because they saw no harm in it. But that was about the limit of his exposure to drugs. He'd heard about harder stuff—smack, spank, crank, or whatever it was called, but his friends weren't in that scene. His group spent their money on Mountain Dew and monthly subscriptions to their online games.

But these people. They'd been afflicted in the worst way by drugs. He could see that now.

Do drugs make a person so dead inside even the zombies don't want them?

The incident would have to go in his book. He'd try to get back here, someday, and see if he could figure it out. For now...

“Good luck to you,” he said in a normal voice. If any of them heard him—they were looking right at him—they said nothing to show it. The woman spoke to herself in low, angry tones, and the man continued to stare straight ahead. Others picked through trash or sat dejectedly on the benches. One man stood against a telephone pole and repeatedly struck it with his head.

He turned and ran into the street again, seeking cleaner air.

5

He ran two blocks before seeing zombies again. Ahead, several loitered near the broken windows of a row of sandwich shops and trendy boutiques. A few more hovered near a super-long black RV tipped over in the middle of an intersection. They seemed lethargic, rather than their usual roaming selves, but he figured they'd not seen prey in a while. Somehow they'd missed the action with the tanks and gunfire further back in the city.

He walked backward, hoping to use a cross street, but both directions had zombies standing around. He studied the area, hoping not to have to backtrack. Running past them was an option, too, but he didn't think it was smart to run toward the zombies if he didn't have to, yet.

On the other side of the street, there was a low-rise structure with a huge word spray-painted on the front brick wall which said “SAFE” with an arrow pointing to a single wooden door.

Better safe, than sorry, eh old bean?

His imaginary voice sometimes carried a British accent.

He ran for the door, disappointed to see several of the zombies on the other side of the road turn as they heard him approach.

Luckily, they didn't come running. He was too fast for them to have any chance of catching him, even if they did.

The door was unlocked, so he pushed through and stepped into a narrow hallway. Steps leading up to another level were about ten feet beyond the entrance. Once the door was closed, he held it—and his breath—to see if the zombies would follow and bang on the door. He was sure they would...but a minute went by, and nothing happened.

“That's odd,” he whispered.

He stood up straight and collected his wits. A small window above the door allowed a little light into the chamber, but it remained dark and stuffy. Safety meant many things these days, and having a door between him and the zombies was close enough to it.

“Let's see what's upstairs,” he murmured to himself.

He took two steps and then felt the sensation of free fall. The wooden floor had given way, and he dropped almost straight down. His reflexes kicked in, and he managed to cushion his fall on the hard floor and roll himself forward to further save himself.

On all fours, he caught his breath from the fall and the fright of it. He'd been totally off guard.

Are things falling apart this quickly?

There would be no more maintenance of infrastructure…

His thoughts were squelched by the moans of zombies.

The hole he'd fallen through had covered itself back up. He couldn't see the light from above. There was no light at all, now.

A quiet realization fell upon him, and he was silent while he tried to solve the puzzle.

He'd spent enough time at night with zombies around to know their sound, and he had some experience judging distance in the dark. Some of the more distant zombies were calling out from a long way away. Others were very close. He was in a large chamber.

He pulled off his backpack and his rifle. An overpowering urge toward silence compelled him to move with painfully slow motions. As if disturbing the air was all it would take to bring the zombies to him. For all he knew, there was a type of zombie that could hone in on air movements. He froze for a long time…

The zipper on the pack echoed off the far wall; he was sure of that. The friction between his hand and the canvas bag had all the subtlety of an explosive new movie. Removing the flashlight from his other gear was the final insult that would get him killed. Each second he was sure he'd feel the touch.

But it didn't come.

An eternity later he had the flashlight in his hand, but he was as afraid of turning it on as he was of sitting there in the dark. The cacophony of sound had grown louder as if they all fed off each other. He was convinced there were hundreds of zombies in the room with him…

This is why I need Victoria with me.

Despite everything, thinking about her put a tiny smile on his face. He imagined how mad she'd be if she knew he wished she was there, in the dark, with zombies screaming for her blood, just so he would have the courage to turn on a flashlight.

Still, it sat unlit in his hand.

He hoped his eyes would adjust to the darkness. He sought any illumination to try to get a sense of things. Even in the pit mine, there were dim lights enough he could see.

He tried the trapdoor again, but his hands couldn't touch anything up there. He couldn't crawl blindly through a room full of zombies. And he wasn't ready to die in place.

Just pretend Victoria is here.

“You ready for this, girlfriend?”

“Let's do this, boyfriend.”

The flashlight switched on with a loud click.

Even with the diffuse beam of the flashlight, he was glad Victoria wasn't there to see it.

6

He was in a long hallway. On the right side, a concrete wall. On the other...

He swept the light to his left. It was a metal cage. Several zombies had their arms through the metal links. Reaching for him. He was nauseated to see the arms had been stripped of skin, as if they'd been pushed and pulled through the rough metal cage—it was a type of chain link enclosure—for a very long time.

The nature of the trap was revealed. Before the plague, it had been a kennel for dogs. A long line of ten-foot tall chain link cages faded away in the darkness. He'd fallen on the service walkway where attendants could walk the dogs to their cages. A small, broken chair was the only thing near him.

He recoiled toward the wall, dismayed to see he would have to walk the gauntlet by all the cages if he had any hope of escaping. The nearest cage had four or five zombies. He used the light to get a better look at them.

The visual registered on his retinas, but he didn't allow the data to reach his brain.

He hefted his pack over his shoulders, then picked up his rifle.

“You can do this,” he said aloud.

The whole row of cages became animated. They had a human target.

Liam felt for the concrete and began to slide his shoulder along the cool wall. With his pack on, he didn't want to face the cages, but he didn't want to face the wall, either, lest he get grabbed by his backpack.

He stopped when he felt a finger touch his shoulder.

“Screw this!”

Working fast, he dropped the backpack to the floor and pressed his back up against the wall. Using the light, he was able to judge the distance better. There was no way anything could reach him while he was against the wall.

He put his foot through a loop of the pack, then used his foot to pull it on the slick floor.

The cages became a pandemonium of noise. He looked a second time but didn't allow himself to see who was inside.

Some zombies moaned in the traditional dirge of the dead. Those were “typical” specimens. A few yelps and whoops called out from up and down the row. Those were the “call to arms” model he recognized from his run-ins with them. He assumed they were the ones spinning up all the others. But there was something new in the mix. A constant humming sound, which he nearly found sad. It was like an opera singer—a woman—carrying the same melodious note for as long as she could. It was only broken when the singer needed to fill her lungs again.

He braced himself, thinking the goal was to make him give up. A kind of aural equivalent of the dreamer zombies, who seemed to operate through the use of smell. If he could be made to hallucinate through smell, there was no reason to doubt he could fall victim to sound...but he couldn't hold a gun and a flashlight and cover both his ears at the same time.

Finally, mid-way down the row of cages, he smelled the tell-tale sickly sweet syrup.

“Hey Victoria, there's one of each kind of zombie in here. How funny is that?”

“I know, right.”

Still, he ignored how the zombies were dressed.

“We have to keep moving,” he said to motivational Victoria.

He kept his eyes forward, and couldn't help notice a cage had bowed outward. It had a particularly rambunctious group of large zombies inside, and they pushed the dog cage to its limit. While the largest were unable to put their arms through, a smaller zombie with very long arms was able to almost touch the wall. As he got there, it became evident the cage had been ripped from its foundation. The entire thing had moved toward the wall.

The noise was approaching jet turbine levels of insanity.

“I can talk to myself because I can't hear myself think,” he laughed.

“You zombies are so stupid...”

“How stupid are we?” he said in a feminine voice.

“You're so stupid...” In the mayhem he was unable to think of a suitable insult. Nothing he could say would make this room right. Not even humor.

He crouched down and wrapped the backpack strap around his leg as best he could. Then he got on all fours and crawled as fast as he could. The zombie in the busted cage could have reached him if she'd gotten down, but she was too busy reaching for him from the standing position.

Maybe the woman sensed what she'd missed because she began to “sing.” It was a stark contrast to the anger and violence swirling through all the other cages. That said, it did nothing to lessen his anxiety as none of this made a lick of sense.

He directed the light ahead, praying for a door. Something to take him out of this nightmare.

The beam reflected off one of the cages ahead. Through the hallway of remaining arms, he could see the cage door was slightly ajar, as if it had been left open. Still on his hands, he crawled the remaining distance, never looking up at the standing zombies.

Each cage had three or four specimens, leading him to an estimate of fifty or so people, though they made noise for several times that many. This was an important math problem to solve because if the door of the last cage was open, he had to know how many runaways were playing hide and seek.

The last cage in the row was empty.

Across from the open cage door, there was a narrow opening in the wall. It had to be the way up.

Without looking back, or thinking about what he'd seen, he untangled his pack and pulled it over one shoulder as he regained his feet.

When his light touched the stairway up, it illuminated one of the escapees.

He felt lucky it was so loud. No one heard him scream like a school girl.

Chapter 2: Midnight Foxes

The sole's of Liam's feet froze on the cement.

The woman lay sprawled as if sliding up the stairs. Her platinum blonde hair was filthy and matted, as he'd expect any zombie to be these days. He fumbled for his AK-47. It got caught up in his backpack strap, and then he had trouble releasing the safety. With sweaty hands, he engaged the charging handle, but it kicked out an unspent round as it fed in the next. He'd forgotten he'd already done that.

He took a step back.

Her head came off the riser and turned, seeking the light.

He brought his rifle to bear at the exact moment the woman's face came into view.

Two things happened simultaneously: Liam fired the gun, and the woman hoarsely cried, in English, the words “Help me.”

The shock of the gunshot was obscene in the tiny staircase. He dropped his flashlight in panic and had enough time to wonder if he really saw—and heard—what he imagined he did. A living woman.

He scrambled for the light as it rolled on the floor.

“Don't shoot!” the woman screamed. It took a shout to overcome his ringing ears and the general din of the terrors in the cages.

He seized the flashlight, and held it on the floor for a few seconds, as if giving the scene time to settle down. If he brought up his gun and lit up the woman once more, he was afraid he'd shoot her.

The woman cried. A soft cooing background noise in the general chaos of the basement. Raising the flashlight, she remained sprawled out on several steps. Her face was down again.

“I won't shoot you,” he called out over the noise.

Her response evaporated into the shouting and moaning.

He leaned in close, tapping her on her bare shoulder. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fire my gun.”

Though she wasn't watching, he set the gun down on the bottom step.

“See, I don't have a gun now.”

The woman lifted her head, unsure. Her face was filthy, her hair was a blitz of frizz and dirt, but her eyes were full of life.

He tilted the flashlight so it wouldn't shine in her face, hoping that would help reinforce his non-violent intentions. Deep down, his own fear was growing because he'd almost killed her for no good reason. Giving the gun to the man in the other stairwell was merely facilitating a suicide. This would have been murder.

I need one of Grandma's priest friends to explain right and wrong out here.

He finally heard her.

“Please. Kill me.”

He leaned in, closer.

“What?”

“I said, please KILL ME!” The words managed to break through the generalized noise. After she'd said her piece, she dropped her head once more. It was a combination of resignation and fatigue if Liam was reading zombie apocalypse emotions properly.

“I can't kill you. I'm going to...rescue you.”

It was his first instinct, but he had no idea where he was or how he could help her. For all he knew, there were ten men with guns on the next floor. Even if he had Victoria, escape was uncertain. With the poor, broken creature on the steps, it might be impossible.

The woman continued to cry. He wanted to make this right, but speaking was difficult in the noise, and he wanted to get away from the things in the cages.

“I'm going to see what's upstairs. See if we can get out.”

He heard her say something, but he had to ask her to repeat it.

“I said they'll kill you.” She continued in a mechanical tone. “If you set one foot upstairs, you'll wish you hadn't. That's what they told us.”

Liam started to piece the place together, though he didn't want to lay it all out for himself. Instead, he cinched his backpack, grabbed his gun, and ascended the steps—carefully stepping over the woman as she continued to lay still on the incline. Whatever was up there, he was willing to chance it with his rifle leading the way.

The noise abated slightly as he reached the top step. He figured they'd settle down eventually if he were completely silent. But then he'd be stuck on the steps with the woman.

The wooden door was unlocked. He opened it just a crack and tried to look into the room.

All he saw was a blank wall. Ahead was another hallway, so he had to open the door almost all the way to check it.

Light came in at the end of the short hall, from what he guessed was a room facing the outside. The door swung all the way open, a fact he belatedly realized would have revealed if anyone was waiting back there.

“Let's do this,” he said to himself. The groans and yelling from below came through the door, but it wasn't as loud as he feared. His ears buzzed from the loud gunshot earlier, so he assumed his hearing had been affected. The noise could be incredible, and he'd not know it. Still, no one was running to the sound, which was something.

He crept to the end of the hallway and peeked around the corner. His palms remained sweaty as he held his rifle with a death grip. His finger wasn't on the trigger—his dad taught him to keep his trigger-finger to the side, to avoid accidental discharges. He wondered if the shooting below was an accidental discharge or just plain stupidity. It only now occurred to him that he'd missed his target at less than three feet. The bullet had entered the wooden staircase, rather than the woman.

He tried to concentrate on the new room. The windows faced the street that intersected the one with the tipped RV. He was sure there should have been some zombies standing around out there, but he didn't see any.

A soft hum was somewhere nearby. He leaned outward to get a better look and saw the carapace of one of the white drones he'd seen flying earlier. It hovered outside the broken windows. He was in what appeared to be a pet store.

He shivered uncontrollably.

Several bodies lay on the floor, nearest the front windows. Pools of blood surrounded those he could see.

Let me guess; there are more bad guys hiding.

He knelt down, to think and to survey the room. There were more dead on the floor near the back of the store. None of them stirred, which was good. It meant they weren't zombies.

The drone floated away.

He crawled toward the front. He craved the outdoors again, though he decided to check one of the men to see if he could figure out what had happened. As he moved, a big chunk of one of the display windows crashed to the floor with the sound a million wine glasses clinking.

That got him moving.

When he reached the man, he knew he'd been alive when he took a bullet. He still held an unlit cigar in his fingers. Liam could hardly look at the remains because the head had been severely damaged by a high-powered firearm. The results spoke for themselves. He would not become a zombie.

But he did have a strange blue piece of metal attached to what remained of his head. It was about three inches long and very thin. It reminded him of the blue thing tangled in the trash man's beard.

“Looks like a tiny arrow,” he said aloud. “What do you make of that, Victoria?”

“Maybe there are miniature zombies, shooting tiny bows,” he giggled like her.

Yeah, that's what she would say.

He was almost ready to pull it out when he noticed another one on the next closest body.

And the one beyond.

And…

2

He scrambled around the room, with his rifle attached to his back for ease-of-movement. Each body had the same blue thing stuck somewhere on the upper body. Many had it near the head. All the little arrows leaned to the front. They'd come from outside the front window. And they were shot after the men were down on the floor.

The drone noise outside returned, and he had a premonition it was looking for him.

He moved quickly and stayed low as he returned to the rear hallway. There he paused to see what would happen next. The miniature helicopter floated by, almost comically, from his perspective. It looked lost as it moved slowly from one broken pane of glass on the left to the far side of the store on the right.

But as it drifted off stage, a new player arrived. He couldn't tell if it was another drone, but a boxy metallic object came into view on the far right of the street. It guided itself to the very center of the broken windows, then paused.

An apparatus on top swiveled rapidly in his direction, and he had half a second to duck.

The shot impacted against the rear wall, behind where his upper body was a moment earlier.

On the floor, he fast crawled for the door downstairs. The moans and cries of the zombies cheered him on.

Another hole appeared in the wall to his left, just above his drooped head. No doubt who was the target.

Three shots came in rapid fire as he covered the final ten feet. The last one jolted him, and he felt the splash of blood on his back. With a great burst of energy, he threw himself into the stairwell and tumbled down the steps, collapsing into the woman. He hit her with such force they both tumbled to the hard basement floor.

He knocked himself good on the way down but didn't lose consciousness. The liquid on his back dripped to the floor, and he was relieved to see it was only his water from his backpack. The bullet must have passed through it...

The excitement of the fall had redoubled the noise of the zombies in the cages, and the crying of the woman—he couldn't tell if she was injured—added to the mayhem of the moment. He pulled out his light, though he could see well enough from the upstairs doorway, which remained open.

“Are you—” he started to say. But movement at the top caught his eye. Something that looked like a small tank on two little treads had maneuvered itself close to the doorway. It was just the right width to fit in the hallway, but it seemed to have problems getting closer to the edge of the steps. The treads rotated on the door frame. The gun on top was angled down.

He pulled the woman away from the bottom step, though she didn't want to come willingly. There was nowhere to go that didn't involve nearing the zombies in the room.

A crack from up the steps. He peeked around the corner as he pulled her. The door was tearing from its hinges. The toy tank seemed angry as the treads made progress chunking through the wood on each side.

“We have to hurry,” he shouted. Looking down, he doubted the woman heard him because she didn't pick up the pace. He felt the wall, intending to drag her low, as he'd come through the first time. They'd hole up at the end of the little service walkway, where he'd dropped into this nightmare.

He'd only gotten her a short way when the wooden door banged a few times on its way down the steps, then it bounced and slid into the open enclosure across from the steps. A mechanical whine followed.

He ignored the reaching hands from the bowed out cage. The woman finally caught on that she had to move fast. Or she just did whatever she was told. In any case, she was there when he cleared the damaged cage, and he stood up and ran the last few yards to the end of the corridor.

At the end he made a snap decision. He pulled off his rifle, which sent the woman to the ground again. But he aimed it at the zombies in the first cage. With the aid of his light to aim, he managed to put three of them down in quick succession...he was working on shooting the lock when the weapons platform poked out of the stairwell. Its gun swiveled to the far side of the room, giving him an extra few seconds to blow out the lock.

“Quick, get inside,” he shouted as the cage swung open. And again he doubted the woman heard him.

The gun began to swing to his side, so he stepped into the enclosure. The woman stayed on the floor. She pushed herself into the deepest blackness of the corner of the hallway...directly below where he'd come in.

He flicked off his light, to give them both a chance.

The drone now had a light on top, pointing where its gun aimed.

The zombies in all the cages became apoplectic with all the activity just out of their reach. Liam knew, or was pretty sure, the tank was going to come down the corridor.

Like it's tracking me.

That stirred his memory.

The small drone had come before the tank, upstairs. But the small helicopter-like drone had also passed above him before he met the bums in the park.

The tank had shot his backpack.

While kneeling among the bodies of the three zombies, he pulled off his backpack and set it on the backs of one of the dead creatures. Yes, it had been wrecked by the gun blast—an entry hole was on one side, and the exit was on the other. But there, as he pretty much expected, was a little wire arrow. Only his was red.

He kicked his backpack into the corner, nearest the zombies in the next cage. They didn't notice that at all, and instead continued to reach for him through the metal cage links. Blood dripped from their ruined arms. He moved himself to the far corner, up against the back wall.

A loud buzzing sound came from the ground-based drone.

Then, gunfire.

Among all the bodies, it wasn't hard to play dead.

3

The drone released one shot after another. He got as low as he could on the floor, though with bullets in the air he felt as if he were standing.

But it wasn't shooting at him.

The volume of the zombies was cut in half after thirty seconds. The drone's tread scraped the bent cage but got by. Then the shots got closer. Each volley unleashed a splash of blood into his cage.

After four or five blasts, he was entirely covered with blood and gore. The strange angles of the light from the drone made all the movement and blood more chaotic.

The next shot took down the zombie in the cage directly next to his. She slumped but remained on her feet, as her arms were already in the fencing. She hung there, looking at him.

Another splash of blood.

He covered his mouth to keep silent while pushing his face into the corner, willing himself to become small and invisible.

The light grew brighter as the tank trundled along, ever closer. His was last in line.

The other two zombies pulled themselves from the fence to attack the light, but they were felled in seconds by the mechanical monster. Two more sprays of blood washed over him, and he shut his eyelids—always worried blood would get him through the eyes.

The room fell silent, save the whine of the engine and the treads of the tank creaking on the concrete. It was right outside the cage.

Grandma, please pray for me.

He thought about praying for himself, but she always talked about how she would pray for others, and never herself. That stuck with him, he was surprised to realize.

The sound of the engine stopped, and the gun erupted close by. He waited for his head to detach from his body...

He counted to ten.

The woman was crying.

Please, be quiet.

He wondered if the machine could sense living people or just zombies.

He rattled off another ten count.

The machine started to back up. It had the familiar beeping of a commercial truck reversing itself on a street. A minute later the engine hum grew with the sound of treads on the stairs. It took a long minute for it to get to the top, but when the tracks rumbled over the wooden floor above he knew it had indeed left the basement.

Soon, the sounds stopped. He hoped that meant it had left the building, though he couldn't discount the notion it was parked upstairs waiting for him to show himself.

The woman's weeping became tired and erratic like she'd cried herself out. He figured if her crying hadn't attracted the eye of the tank, he was probably OK to open his own eyes and see what had become of the place.

With a click, he turned on the light.

He put his hand over his mouth to keep from yelping in shock. The zombies had been put down with ruthless precision by the thing's gun. It had been programmed to aim for the head—there was no question of that. Each of the zombies had been messily ruined up top. Every square inch of all the nearby cages was doused with the sickening blackness of blood. He felt it on himself but tried to ignore it. He pulled at the material of the front of his shirt and felt the wetness stuck to his chest.

The light fell near the woman, who was softly whimpering in her corner. She was also splashed with blood, though it wasn't as thick on her.

Finally, he took another look at his backpack. It had been shot twice now, and the material was ravaged. It, too, was soaked in water and blood. He rooted around and was surprised the magazine was still intact, as was a pocketknife. His energy bars and water bottles were ruined. One of the straps was also shredded, though he was able to heft it on his back with the remaining one. He felt compelled to keep it, as it had been given to him by Travis. A man he wanted to return the pack to, someday.

“Are you all right,” he gently asked.

“Is this Hell?”

“What? No. This is St. Louis.” He found it disturbing, but not unsurprising, given what had happened in the basement, both before and after he arrived.

“I'm dead. These—things—are dead. We're all dead,” she said in a hurried cadence.

“No, we're alive. You're going to make it. That, um, drone...it only targets these things.” He pulled out the red arrow from his pack and showed it to her, as if it made total sense.

He pulled off his shirt and offered it to her. “Um, sorry it's wet, but you can use this to cover yourself up. I'm sorry I couldn't help you sooner. The men upstairs are all dead. You're safe.”

He was reminded of his mom's words. Telling someone they were safe while zombies walked the streets was an outright lie. She'd known that. He knew that. But saying it made him feel better, and he was sure it made her feel better. Her whimpering slowed to nothing, and she began to wring out the blood from his one-sleeved T-shirt.

While they waited, he didn't know how to talk to her without addressing the elephant in the room. Sometimes asking survivors to tell their story helped relieve tension, but he figured this scenario would be the complete opposite. So he stayed in safer territory.

“What did you do before the zombies?”

The woman was only wearing underwear. Liam's shirt was a bit large on her, but she didn't complain. Once it was on, she stood up and moved into the enclosure with him.

“You ever hear of Midnight Foxes?”

Her voice was distinctively southern, now that he could hear it.

4

“I'm originally from Jacksonville, Florida, but I've been living in Nashville, Tennessee on account of the recording studio. I'm the lead singer for Midnight Foxes.”

Liam showed no recognition.

“Midnight Foxes? You've never heard of us?”

“I listen to classic rock, mostly.”

“Oh,” she said with a touch of rejection. “Well, we're a country band. Three multi-talented ladies with a string of gold records behind us. Nothing? You really haven't heard of us.”

“Ma'am, I didn't even know there was a Patriot Snowball when it was happening.”

“Wow. You must live in a dungeon.” After she said it, she looked at her current locale. She let out a little whimper. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“No, it's fine. I was big into video games...didn't pay attention to the news. I missed a lot.”

“We were trying to drive back from touring in Colorado when the world went south. We gave a ride to our roadies and PR people, as well. Our tour bus ran out of gas. We watched as it was attacked and turned over by a mob. Our driver was killed, but the rest of our group was herded down here...by those men.”

She choked on a sob. “They offed Mick—our bass guitarist—outright. But they kept us girls...”

He didn't sweep his light over the cages, but he allowed an inkling of understanding to seep into his brain. All the caged zombies had been women. None of them had much in the way of intact clothing. The inference was still too much for him. The thought of his mother, or Victoria, in someplace like this...

I have to get back to her.

He didn't want to continue to press her for answers, but...

“How did they all become zombies?”

She looked at him for a long moment.

“What's your name?”

“Liam.”

“Hi, Liam. I'm Denise. Well, my stage name is Monique, but I guess that name is dead, now. You haven't heard of me, anyhow.” She laughed a sad laugh. “Us girls were taken upstairs. We'd get some food and water, and allowed to clean ourselves up a little, but then...”

He looked at her expectantly, but eventually he figured out what she was avoiding.

She went on. “Sometimes others came through the trapdoor. Men would be shot on sight. Women would be tossed in the cages. Sometimes that meant other women were taken out, to make room. That went on for a month, it seems...”

“This is day twenty since the sirens.”

“Oh. It feels like forever. Well, one day—not sure how many days ago—one of the new girls on the far end of the cages started acting funny. We could all see it happen. When we figured out she was infected, we all screamed for our lives...but no one heard us. She converted the other two in her cage, and then the disease spread down the cages day after day. When it got into the one next to mine, me and two women I didn't know started to throw ourselves at the front door and we managed to bend the lock. They built these things for dogs, not humans.”

She paused, thinking.

“But the real dogs were upstairs. My two friends ran up there to break out.”

She teared up and spoke with reverent tones. “They shot them in the head and tossed them back down the steps. I was so scared I was next...”

She sniffled. “When nothing happened, I moved them into the last cage to get the bodies away from me, but there was nowhere for me to go that was safe, so I returned to the steps. At least I couldn't see any of those sick women.”

“And the men never came down to check on you?”

“Naw. I think they infected us. Put us out of our misery. They argued constantly about money and drugs and turf while we were...up there.”

It was horrible to contemplate.

“Are you...infected?”

“Kid, I'm having a real bad day,” she said with a spark of defiance, “what the ever hell makes you think I care if I'm infected, now?”

Deep down, he wanted to express his intention to save her. She'd been through so much, he felt it was his duty to bring her to some form of safety. Make it all worthwhile. But the Zombie Apocalypse didn't work like that. Not anymore. There were no happy endings, as far as he could tell.

The best he could do was get her to temporary safety, with the expectation the place would fall apart soon after that. The whole town was in danger of becoming one big war zone, if the patriots really intended to make a stand here. If he were in charge, he would take the patriots to some other city. A city not on the priority list for the remaining all-powerful government forces, led by the National Internal Security agents. That seemed like a solid strategy to him, though he freely admitted military strategy wasn't his thing.

“I'm trying to get back to my girlfriend. You're welcome to come with me. If you aren't infected.”

She studied him for a few seconds. “You may be the person I'd least suspect was in this shit hole for a girl. She must be pretty special.”

As he collected his backpack, he nodded. “Oh, she is. But I'm not out here because of her. I'm out here because of my mom. She took me somewhere I didn't want to be, and now I'm trying to fix that mistake.”

“Sounds complicated. I'll shut up, now.”

“No, it's OK. And not that complicated. I found someone in this mess that I never want to be separated from again. Zombies aren't going to stop me. Toy tanks aren't going to stop me. Nothing on Earth is going to stop me from getting back to her.”

“Wow, good. I want to stick with you.” After a pause, “Do you have a gun for me?”

He wasn't sure she was ready for a gun, given how shaky and weak she appeared. Though it wasn't his place to tell her what she could and couldn't do.

“The men upstairs had guns on their bodies. We should both grab what we can, and then get out of here.”

That placated her. He ignored all the bodies in the cages as they walked for the stairwell. The cage that had been bowed outward had been pushed back in by the tank drone. He was unwilling to look at the zombie remains, though he sensed some were still hanging by their arms.

The wooden steps had gouges torn from each riser where the mini tank had crept down and back up the stairs. It had been dripping with blood, now that he could see the steps in the light. The same blood that splashed him had also covered the chassis of the single-minded killer robot.

Which Apocalypse am I in?

5

In the dim light of the stairwell, he turned to Denise and put his finger over his lips, indicating quiet. He had no idea if the killer drone was still upstairs, but he had to assume it was. He climbed the stairs like a snake and peeked over the top edge to see if he was about to take a shot to the face.

There was nothing. He was impressed to see the big holes in the wall where the drone had shot at him earlier. Now that he knew it was aiming for the tag on his backpack, it made sense why the shots were too high as he crawled down the hallway. If he had stood and run, the shots might have been closer to his body...

He crawled to the first hole in the wall, while Denise held fast near the top step. She wore his tan Yuengling shirt, thought it was now sickly red. He was bare-chested again, making him wonder if he kept doing that to show off.

Yeah, I subject myself to insane situations so I can flex my muscles and impress the ladies.

It was funny to him because he wasn't a bodybuilder. He was a runner. Perhaps he'd do it for Victoria, but not some random country music singer.

He stifled nervous laughter.

The hole revealed nothing. He could see down one row of the pet store's aisles, but he couldn't see much else.

Something was in front of the next whole, so it was useless.

The final hole in the wall was a bit higher. He could see the windows at the front of the store, but couldn't be sure the tank drone wasn't elsewhere in the store. The only way to be sure was to walk out there.

Liam wondered if he could outlast the drone if it were there. It didn't make sense to have a drone sit inside the pet store unless it knew for certain he was there. And, if it knew he was there, it could have easily killed him down in the cages. That meant the drone was likely not there.

He stayed low in a crouch, but walked from one end of the store to the other, using the back row to look down each aisle. The drone wasn't visible. A large hole in the front facade suggested the entry and exit point.

When he got back to Denise, he let himself talk a little louder than he had before.

“I think we're clear. I don't see the tank drone or the helicopter drone.”

“There's more than one? That's horrible.”

“I think the floating one tags zombies, and the other goes around shooting them.”

Though he couldn't rectify the difference between the blue tags and the red ones.

A distant beeping sound resonated from the streets outside. It was the tank, and it was far away.

“We just have to avoid any drones, if we want to get out of this place.” He meant the city, but right now he would be happy to leave the building behind. His bare chest was an itchy, drying mess of blood. A pool of water was high on his list of requirements for the day. Or a hot shower...

“First, if you come up to the front, we can find you a gun.”

She smiled and followed.

They both stayed low. There were several men on the floor, surrounded by pools of fresh blood. The blue arrows made him think them through. The red arrows were for living, animated creatures. That's why it was shot at him but hit his backpack.

The blue tag was for dead people. As in, no longer moving. These men were tagged after they'd hit the floor. That's why all the arrows pointed toward the window.

He searched the room for the red tags. They were all sitting in a neat row on the checkout counter like they'd all deposited them there. He could visualize the drone going by, shooting tags at the men inside the pet store. Mystified, they pulled them back out, gathered to compare notes, and were taken by surprise when the tank drone arrived.

But if they took out the arrows, how could they be targeted?

He looked at the red arrows with the purpose of solving the mystery. The only way they could be targeted after the darts were removed was if the darts deposited something inside the victim. The dart itself was secondary.

When he looked at the tip, he didn't see anything obvious to suggest there was something attached, but he knew there was. There had to be.

It made him sad to do it, but he took off his backpack and emptied it. Whatever was on the dart, it was probably still inside the pack. He couldn't take that chance.

He transferred what he could to the pockets of his jeans, and tossed the backpack out the front window. He half-expected it to be shot by a waiting drone but breathed a sigh of relief when it harmlessly fell to the ground. Around him, the store had been ransacked and gutted, but there had to be some sort of doggie baggie, yuck yuck, he could use to carry his stuff.

Denise made noises near the back of the store. He heard the clank of metal. It sounded like someone had dropped silverware on the hard wooden floor.

He walked in her direction, searching for a bag, and wondering to himself whether Victoria liked country music. They'd never spoken of music, though it was something he was fond of talking about before the sirens. It was one other thing, besides gaming, that he did pretty much all the time. It would be cool to roll into Forest Park with a big country music star on his arm. Extra points if Victoria liked country music.

He had a smile on his face when he rounded the corner.

A bloody knife was on the floor.

His country music star was already dead.

Chapter 3: Tracers

Liam ran like hell. Straight out the front of the pet store, into the street. He didn't care about zombies. The death rattle of the country singer snapped something in him. It made his suffering through the dog kennels and his fight with the tank drone seem irrelevant.

He'd failed to anticipate she'd do something like that. She'd asked for a weapon as soon as she could, but he assumed she needed it to defend herself from both zombies and the sick men who had abused her.

But she used it for a much darker purpose. He didn't want to envision the level of sadness he'd have to endure before he'd consider ending his own life. Also, he pushed down the suffering she endured with the other women in those cages...

So he made for the exit as fast as his feet would carry him.

He turned the corner and ran the street with the Foxes' tipped tour bus at the far end. He had his rifle in his hands, ready to fire. As before, the zombies on the street stood around looking at him, but they didn't move from their positions. When he reached the big converted tour R/V, the chains around the feet of the zombies explained the why of it. Though he was nearly out of this horror scene, he stopped to look back.

The trap was nearly perfect. The one side of the street had seven or eight zombies tied to the building and some of the parking meters near the curb. At first glance they appeared to be threatening—as if they would cross the street. The zombies set up near the tipped R/V kept a wandering survivor from running in that direction. Left with few alternatives, a new arrival would see the “safe” sign on the wall and run to and through the mysterious door, to safety.

Only it wasn't safe. It was, as Denise said, Hell.

Victoria said we'd all be killing each other. We'd become bad people to stave off the worst people.

It was all coming true.

He skated by the remaining zombies and the R/V. A whole new stretch of city opened up in front of him. He could see to the west for many blocks as the hot afternoon sun shone in his face. Far ahead he saw one of the floating drones, but he didn't see the land-based model. For the first time, he considered that there could be several of each kind.

The middle lane of the five-lane avenue was dubbed the “suicide lane” by his older friends who could drive. It was the only lane where you could go either way, making it instantly dangerous. He chose that one and leaned into a jog again.

The rhythm of running returned, and after the first block, he felt comfortable with what he was doing. His heart slowed down from his panic, and he forced himself to take deep breaths to support his oxygen levels.

I'm going to run straight through. No more detours.

He made it two more blocks before he tripped on a small rope someone had strung across the road. He saw it as he approached, but ignored it because it—when he was ten feet away—was positively on the pavement. It was just past a small four-door subcompact that had been abandoned in the middle of the lane. His eyes were drawn to the car, and at the last second the rope sprang up.

He tumbled hard, and it knocked the wind out of him.

As he struggled to figure out what was happening, he heard the footfalls of someone running. Several someones.

Something smacked him on the side of the head…

When he woke up, it was nearly dark. Several propeller-driven aircraft buzzed above the city, but the cracks of gunfire nearby were of more concern.

And something burned on the skin of his neck.

I've been bitten!

He put his hand on the painful patch and was relieved and distraught to feel the familiar shape of a needle. Not a bite. While he was out, another drone must have hovered by, noticed he was still alive, and tagged him. For termination.

Getting to his knees took some effort. His head spun, and he felt as if he'd been kicked in more places than just his head.

He'd been relieved of everything. He'd been attacked by thieves this time. No rapists, murderers, or cannibals. In the hierarchy of evil, he figured he'd gotten off lightly.

It took him a few minutes to collect his thoughts, then snake his way to the nearby derelict car. The metal hulk would give him a piece of safety from which to consider what to do next. Part of him wanted to find a place to spend the night, but an angry part of him wanted to continue his run—no matter what. Victoria was still only an hour away.

And each second I waste out here, the more danger she's in.

That probably wasn't true. Deep down he knew she was as safe as anyone could be in the city. She was probably eating more cookies in her dorm room, wondering when he'd be back. If all had gone to plan, he assumed he'd have been back well before dinnertime. Now the sun was almost down.

Gunfire.

He also heard the familiar beeps of the droid tank. It was backing up, somewhere nearby.

The ground shook beneath him. A powerful explosion had gone off, to the north. A few seconds later he felt a dull shockwave of air.

The high-rises of St. Louis were many blocks behind him. The city was too small to have many, in the first place. He was now in a less-crowded section of the city with two- and three-story buildings along the street. Ahead he could see what appeared to be a larger seven- or eight-story hotel. Beyond that, more of the same stretched westward until he'd reach the much taller row of hospitals that lined the eastern edge Forest Park. He couldn't see them yet, however, because he was looking up a large hill. The street would take him up the hill that in a previous life had given his dad fits when he ran marathons in this town.

I can do this.

His fingertips felt the soothing cool of the car. Then they pushed him off into the sunset run.

2

Unencumbered with anything besides his shoes and jeans, he felt light and fleet. It was disappointing to lose another of his dad's guns—he lost “Moses” two weeks ago—but he didn't have that far to go, and despite his emotional and physical exhaustion, he felt good enough at the moment to assure himself he could make the jog to Victoria.

In a couple of blocks, he started to see some zombies on the ground. Shot in the head with a high-powered gun, just like he'd seen done by the drone tank. If he took the time to search the corpses, he was sure there were little arrows stuck to them.

More planes flew overhead. They conducted a ballet in the sky much as they had done many weeks ago above the Arch. Somewhere, out in the city, he imagined Jason and his Tiger tank driving frantically to avoid the ire of those birds above. His mom made the best decision possible when she abandoned the tank inside the lobby of the skyscraper. Until the planes were gone, tanks were more or less useless.

His mind drifted as he ran, though he shook his head roughly to try to keep himself focused on all the dangers around him.

Zombies, for starters.

Emotionless drones, for a second helping of fun.

Random falling bombs, for dessert.

And that didn't include the things he couldn't predict, like dog cages full of captive zombies.

Block after block passed by. He struggled up the urban hill and took in the view on the other side. The sunset was a brilliant orange and pink and was much more vivid than any sunset he could recall seeing in his life.

The world is on fire, and it looks beautiful.

Someone fired a gun—close by—interrupting his appreciation of the sky. The pavement snapped near his feet.

“Die you zombie scum!”

He had no time to argue. He sprinted toward the other side of the street doing the zigs and zags he'd seen a million times on TV.

Another shot chased him.

“That's right you little shit, run and hide. We're gonna get ya,” a deep male voice called out.

With no choices, he ran between two buildings. If the shooter was directly behind him, he'd be an easy target with no way to jink side-to-side. Another shot did follow, but he heard no ricochets or whizzing, so he began to think he had a chance. As he approached an eight-foot chain link fence blocking the alley, he sprang to the top, more or less carefully climbed over the top, and dropped to the far side. In two more seconds he had the corner of the building between himself and the bullets.

His breathing was heavy, forcing him to lean over to catch his breath.

This is where they get you. A million books on zombies say this is it.

What he didn't know was whether he would be shot for looking like a zombie—his upper torso was still covered with the dried blood of the dog cage zombies—or would be killed by a zombie for looking edible. The mosquitoes of July swarmed him, adding the final insult.

He was in an empty parking lot behind another brick building. A law firm name graced the one intact window on the entryway to the little office; papers were strewn about inside, and some had been tossed out the door, too.

Not knowing what else to do, he went inside. In the failing light, he could view the reception area with no problem, but a pair of hallways led away into the darkness.

The place had been ransacked, as he expected, but he was sure there had to be something he could use as a weapon. The reception desk was a coven of destruction, but he did find a sharp pair of scissors.

Better than my fists.

Feeling the smallest bit more self-assured, he tried to get deeper into the place. The nearest hallway turned out to be the restrooms. Nothing useful would be there; he didn't even have to go.

The other hallway went to the offices, and he intended to try the nearest when he remembered a zombie movie where something like this came up.

“Hey, any of you jerks hiding in here?” He said it loud enough to be heard in the hallway and attached offices.

The seconds counted by. He was beginning to think the coast was going to be clear, but the ugly moan of a zombie started from somewhere at the end of the hallway.

Then a soft pounding on a door, like someone with mittens was hitting it.

A minute went by with the same constant sound before he was willing to chance walking into the hall. Much like his earlier experience up in the Arch, it was sometimes safer to go with the direction where you know there was a zombie, than the one where you aren't sure. If the zombie wasn't on him already, it might be stuck behind a door.

The first office had an open door. Like the front of the establishment, everything had been tossed carelessly within the room. Even the desk had been put on its side. The computer looked new and fancy, and very broken. The only thing that was remotely of use was a coat rack with a suit jacket tangled up in its arms. Everything was on the floor, but he got busy unhooking the jacket and put it on. It was very tight, and he was almost ready to take it back off, but he figured it would be better than nothing right now. To be mistaken for a bloody zombie would be far worse than an ill-fitting suit coat.

I don't even know how to tie a tie.

Fortunately, there wasn't a tie.

The coat rack almost had the right length and heft to fashion a crude spear, but he quickly deduced it would be way too heavy. That got him thinking, though, and he searched the room for alternatives.

He settled on a stout wooden chair that probably had been used by clients anxious to sue for luxuries of the Old World. It took him three tries to swing the chair over his head and break it. When he finally managed that feat, he pulled out a leg. It felt about right, but it wouldn't make a very good spear. It still had some of the seat attached. It did make a fair club he could swing.

The scissors went into his pants pocket, then he picked up the club and swung it around the room to test it. He discounted his prior failures of swinging weapons and made himself believe this time would be different.

He walked back out into the night, with mismatched clothes and weapons.

“I'm coming home, Victoria,” he said with quiet certainty.

He ran some more.

3

Each building on the avenue had a small parking lot behind it, complete with dumpsters, abandoned cars, and the occasional zombie. Things were spread out so he could see what was coming up. That's how he saw the helicopter drone emerge from a building up ahead and shoot a tag at a couple of zombies loitering nearby.

Then it vectored for him.

Once more, he turned to the left. He ran to an abandoned pickup truck and slid underneath.

He listened for the drone to arrive. Gunshots were constant, though most of them were far away.

I need someone to shoot this drone.

The whirl of the blades sent air under the truck. The drone was somewhere above. He moved as far to the other side of the undercarriage as he dared. In the twilight, he expected to see the flash of aircraft lights, but the drone didn't seem to need them.

The wind shifted, and he sensed the drone was on the move. He returned to the center of the truck, waiting for what he'd need to do next. His club was useless. The scissors were a joke.

After a few moments, he felt the air blowing up through the legs of his jeans. He angled his head so he could see behind the truck, and the drone had nearly landed on the pavement behind him. A small tube on its underside pointed at him.

“Oh, crap!”

He slid out the left side, pushing his club with him. The machine lifted off, and he felt it get close to him as he crouch-ran to the front of the truck. The old Ford was in the middle of an empty lot. He had nowhere to go.

Maybe I could get inside the cab?

Before he could finish his thought, the drone jumped upward so it was on top of the cab, about ten feet off the ground. The little gun tube swiveled to him.

Almost without planning it, he hefted the wooden club and let it go toward the copter. It impacted the underside of the rotors with a loud crack. Pieces of wood flew back at him, and the drone tipped backward. He ducked himself down to the front bumper, worried it would tip over on top of him and catch him with one of the deadly blades. That would be a horrible way to die.

The truck lurched as the drone banged loudly in the bed of the truck. The blades weren't stopping, but they clanged over and over on the metal.

Rather than gawk at it, he ran.

As he rounded the corner of a building onto the next street over, he heard the drone begin to emit a high-pitched siren. It sounded a lot like a cry for help. He found a dark nook and squatted down to catch his breath, again—needing the break. The sprinting was more than he could handle.

While he waited, another drone flew by. It came from across the street and passed near enough he felt the wash of its blades. It went in the direction of its fallen friend.

“Feet, I need you,” he whispered.

There were no other—obvious—threats on the street, so he got back to it. Now he was without his chair-club. He only had what jiggled in his pocket.

I'm breaking the cardinal rule of life: running with scissors!

He giggled to himself and enjoyed the distraction as he notched another couple of blocks. That's when he tripped—again.

This time, it was more of a slip. He saw dirt or something on the street, but the low light was tricky. He didn't count on banana-peeling the underlying layer of fluid. He was back on his feet in a flash, pants soaked in god-knows-what, looking for the inevitable attacker, like the previous trap.

But nothing came at him.

The debris on the ground was horrifying. And he'd seen something like it before. Two wide swathes of crushed bodies lay upon the ground, from one side of the street to the other. The Tiger tanks made the same horrific tracks when they crushed all the zombies between the warehouses earlier that day. But these tracks looked to be weeks old. They'd intermingled with dust, trash, and foliage. But here and there he could watch a lone hand move or the remains of a head with an ever-moving mouth. Where there were no bodies, such as where he slipped, the tanks had left slick tracks of blood and other gore. Crushed and compacted.

He tuned it out.

This isn't happening!

His stomach rebelled, but he didn't throw up. He ignored that he'd slipped on the effluence of the remains of things that had been pulverized days or weeks ago by heavy-treaded army tanks.

The scissors mocked him from his pocket. He was carrying a useless weapon in a world where rocket-propelled grenades were the order of the day.

Where the tank had gone was not his concern.

Whose side it was on was not his concern.

His concern was ahead. He stepped over the tracks and picked up the pace.

Running at night wasn't his thing.

4

He ran for about ten minutes while the darkness fell. There were no street lights or other electrical sources. He thought the darkness would be an advantage against the crazy people who might shoot at him, but it turned out to be a big liability for fending off zombies.

Almost without realizing it, he'd picked up a handful of runners. Among all the other noises of the city, and his own footfalls, he almost missed the sound of feet behind him. He kept to the middle of the street, hoping to avoid tripwires or piles of human remains, but a quick look back while running across an intersection let him make out at least three or four people chasing him.

“I don't suppose you're alive, huh?”

No response.

Damn.

He steadied himself. Forest Park was still miles away, and now he had a fan club. The risk of falling or getting delayed in any way had just become instantly deadly.

For a little while, he tried to tune them out. Just like any number of track and cross country meets he'd endured. He wasn't a contender in most of them, but he was a finisher. That was all that mattered, most times.

A large search light peered down from a helicopter to his right, as he cruised through the night.

Two jets flew very low, almost directly above his head. He absently thought about bombs—he was on their flight path—but resolved that if he was ever given time to think about bombs, he probably wasn't being bombed.

Blocks ahead he watched as someone fired a machine gun—an honest-to-god machine gun—as they sent the tracers skipping across an intersection. The rounds danced from his left to his right. A big spotlight at ground level illuminated the intersection for a few seconds, then turned off.

He considered slowing down so he could avoid that cross street until the shots were gone, but slow wasn't in his vocabulary. He continued ahead, though it didn't look like the bullets were letting up.

At the last intersection before the dangerous one, the attack stopped. He picked up his pace, intending to get across in the lull.

Did they stop, or are they reloading?

That was the most important question on Earth.

When he arrived at the road, he looked both ways as he would on any other run. A pair of Humvees were far down the road on his left. Shockingly, both sat under powerful spotlights, almost like they wanted to be seen. Each also aimed searchlights where they fired their guns. They were two intersections down, and they each fired down different roads. At that moment they weren't firing his way.

He sprinted. The cross street was huge—it felt like a superhighway—and it took him an eternity to cross it. The entire time he imagined the gunners changing their aim, so the bullets came his way.

A tracer flashed in front of him.

He'd made it a little over half way, but the rounds started passing in front of him.

The searchlight caught him in full view.

He threw himself down and lined himself up so his head faced the guns. He didn't know if that was a bigger risk than spreading himself out lengthwise, but it seemed to make sense. His head was turned so he could see the runners behind him.

Five or six had tagged along. They were closer than he figured they'd be.

Unlike him, they made no effort to get low. As the gunners up the street noticed their rounds were making contact with something, both gunners focused efforts on Liam's intersection. The runners stood out in the glare of light.

The first zombie was halved, and he fell with a disgusting splash to the pavement. He'd only made it a short ways across.

Liam used the distraction to claw his way toward a body that had been shot earlier. It put something between him and the gun trucks, though it would offer no protection if the bullets wanted him.

One gunner stopped, but the other swept the entire road again. It brought down a second zombie, and when it hit, the tracers spun off in odd directions. In the uneven light, Liam saw the woman get shredded.

The second gunner started up again. His shots were short, so the rounds hit the road between Liam and the Humvees, and the rounds skipped over his intersection. Several skipped right over his head. Some made funny sounds as they went by.

One of the runners made it all the way to Liam and tripped over him as he lay there.

As was common with the zombies, it struck the ground with great force, without using its arms to catch itself. The hollow slap of its skull on the asphalt would have been funny in any other situation. Now, not so much.

The zombie seemed to notice him as it struggled to get up. Instead of finding its feet, it crawled toward Liam. It wore shorts and a white tank top with bloody accents.

He struggled to get out the scissors.

Several more rounds whizzed right over the zombie.

“Just a little lower,” he shouted, knowing he wouldn't be heard.

The gunfire stopped completely.

He propped himself up on his elbow, intending to prepare to fight the crawler, and the gunfire resumed. Both guns angrily pounded the intersection like it had killed the gunners' pet cat.

The zombie was unafraid. It closed the distance. The scissors felt miserable in his hand, but he readied them.

At the last second, he gambled on another tactic.

Using his experience with squats, he got to his feet and then sprang up.

The tracer rounds bounced and skipped wildly further down the street, but he ignored the danger. As expected, the zombie got to his feet as well.

All the better to grab my prey...

He dropped back down and tried to continue drag-crawling himself across the street. His black suit jacket would be harder to see than the man's white shirt. Or, he hoped that would be the case.

A repetitive thumping noise sounded from the zombie. It had been struck several times in succession, but it stumbled after Liam. He moved as fast as he could on his hands and knees, but figured if the zombie caught him—it would bring the angry thumps with it.

More impacts.

He imagined a tracer flew underneath his chest as he was on his hands and knees. Maybe it was the fear.

He picked up the speed like he was doing exercises with his track team.

“Who can cross the intersection the fastest, without standing and running? Go!”

In ten seconds he was across and had another corner of a building between himself and the gunners. He got to his feet and looked back.

The pursuit had been wiped out. The zombie closest to him had huge chunks removed from his chest, and one of his arms had been taken clean off. His white shirt had turned sickly black, and blood poured from a large hole in its head. It had taken the full force of an untold number of machine gun rounds. And, it had almost made it.

The lights flicked off.

Liam waited for fifteen seconds and then peeked around the corner. The Humvees were aiming their lights down other roads now.

Behind him, a couple of runner zombies came into the intersection, saw the lights, then headed that direction. It was as if they'd been following him but now had juicier targets.

Since they had lights on themselves, along with powerful weapons, he allowed that he was glad the zombies were targeting someone else for a change. If he wanted to get safe, getting to those guns might be the right choice to survive the night, but that wasn't the direction he was heading.

His journey westward continued.

5

He tried to guess how far he'd come since he'd left the Polar Bears. With all the distractions and changes in directions, he estimated he'd gone three or four miles. That left at least two to go.

A twenty-minute run under ideal conditions.

He felt the dead weight of fatigue hit him hard. The combination of the drain of adrenaline and the fall of night had him wishing he could get off his feet and rest.

Push on!

The zombies were out there, but he kept moving fast enough they couldn't see him. He thought there could be runners behind him, but he couldn't be sure. His footfalls were stealthy compared to the zombies, and if they were back there—he'd never assume they weren't—they were very quiet.

More gunfire from every direction in the city. The chatter of the machine guns was distinctive, but a thousand other guns were being discharged over the urban landscape. Rarely, someone would shoot close enough to worry him.

This city has lost its mind.

If he looked down the cross streets to his left, he'd often see the tracers of the Humvees two blocks over. They skipped or arced to the west in the same direction he was going. But they couldn't reach him.

When he was only a couple blocks outside Forest Park, he saw the dim lights of the medical towers ahead. They still used generators to keep the places lit and functioning. They called to him.

“I'm here, Liam.”

“I'm coming, girlfriend,” he said to the darkness. The reply was the ricochet of a bullet. It snapped somewhere close. That got him to move from the middle of the road and approach more cautiously.

As he closed the distance to the park, he became aware of where all the gunfire was originating. It wasn't just all over the city. It was a very specific point in the city. A perimeter, actually.

The boundary of the park was a combination of derelict cars, parking barriers, and whatever junk people could stack in piles. They'd filled the gap between buildings. It presented a formidable barrier to keep the zombies out, assuming the defenders had sufficient ammo and that the military wasn't instructed to bomb the place to oblivion.

But the larger problem was that he was now on the outside, looking in. Those gunshots were coming in his direction. The far side of a big intersection was blocked by city buses, dump trucks, and other large vehicles. A few men with spotlights walked on top, illuminating the zombies in the street outside their position. Gunners would then dispatch them. A ton of bodies littered the intersection.

They appeared to be using a similar tactic as the military down the road. They were drawing in the zombies by using light, which gave them clear shots at the easy targets. The biggest difference was the caliber being used. No machine guns or tracer rounds, here.

Liam heard men and women yelling from across the street, but they sounded as if they were on the other side of a wide river. The zombies in the “river” between them kept him from yelling out to them. In the darkness of night, anything could happen.

A jet screeched overhead.

Choppers whomped in the distance.

Always gunfire.

Amidst all the confusion, he felt something sting him on the back of his shoulder. He reached back and froze.

A little helicopter drone hummed by, well overhead. It moved with silent grace over the intersection, and he could hear the little wisps of air as the drone tagged other zombies standing out there. It didn't hurt to remove the little tag, and in the darkness he had no way to know what color his was. All he could think about was that he was now targeted for death.

A methodical cadence of gunfire erupted nearby. Four shots in a row. He searched the intersection as it sounded as if it were coming from that direction.

He saw it. It was on the next block. The little drone tank came out through the glass frontage of a fast food chain store. With a quick turn, it engaged some zombies on the parking lot, then headed for the road.

He threw down the drone's tag. He briefly considered throwing it into the flat, but couldn't say for sure if anyone still lived there. It would be a terrible way to die—some kid throwing a killer drone tracking device into your living room. One country music star was enough responsibility for him…

He crawled along the base of the brick home, looking for a way inside. It pained him to do it, but he needed a place to hole up until the light of day. He'd never get across the intersection, or the road, or the barrier, if he had to run out of the black of night to do it.

But he wasn't going to sleep in the streets, either.

There was a tiny side window to the basement, as he hoped. The home was very similar to Grandma Marty's. He had to push firmly with the bottom of his shoes, but the lock was weak. He pushed the window open and then slithered feet-first into the basement.

If there were survivors waiting down there—or zombies—he'd take his chances with them, rather than deal with that tank drone again. It continued to shoot at will in the night.

Please, just one night of safety.

It was rare for him to pray outright, but he was so tired he pretty much forgot Grandma's rule never to pray for himself.

6

He fell asleep and dropped into a dream. It was a vividly bright day in Grandma Marty's backyard. The grass was a lush green, and the flower gardens were in full bloom. While he walked, he studied the larger neighborhood. It took some time to process.

I know I'm dreaming. That's odd.

The small garage at the end of the lot was flattened. Every garage and fence on the near side of the alleyway had been similarly smashed. Several houses, including the one next to Grandma, had been burnt to the ground. He made sure her home was OK, and to his relief, it stood with resilience as it looked down on him.

The top level was Angie's apartment inside the two-story brick building. So many memories flooded his mind, but he kept grounded by remembering he was inside his dream. Being in this house, so much like hers, probably jogged something in his memory.

“I'll avoid Angie's room like the plague,” he said with laughter. He figured if he was dreaming, he might as well enjoy it.

From inside Grandma's house, he heard screams. In fact, they were coming from the basement—his old bunk space. Much as he'd done in real life, he went to the side of the house and found the narrow basement windows. He kicked one in, then slid through.

His bed was still there. It hadn't been touched. His gaming laptop was on the bedspread, just as he'd left it. While fighting the deep longing for the computer, he looked at the rear doorway. It was just as well he didn't try the basement door, the dryer he'd placed in front of that door was still there.

It was as if he'd just stepped out. Minus the fact the other houses were in ruins. That wasn't something he'd witnessed.

Am I seeing the house as it is now?

Another scream. He recognized Victoria. It came from deeper in the basement, which looked like a hoarder's stash, once he walked beyond his little living space. He inched through the junk and noted with some pride the gap in the rafters where his dad had left him the small-caliber guns. Those had saved his life, and Grandma's life. He was positive of that.

“Liam, please hurry,” Victoria's voice was soft and wistful.

He became driven. Deeper he went. The dream basement was different in one major way. It was much larger. The piles of junk continued for minutes while he struggled through, and then over them. He ignored the changing scenery below him.

Here, piles of garbage bags.

Next, piles of bodies, stacked neatly.

He had to crawl over a pyramid of beer cans.

Stacks of large bags of dog food.

What the hell?

Finally, he reached the end of the basement. His Grandpa had kept several shelves of old shortwave radios. Liam always assumed it was because of his time back in the war, but he'd never thought to ask. His Grandpa Al had long since passed away, and it seemed a waste of effort to ask Grandma Marty—a woman famous for not touching a piece of technology her whole life.

“Open the door. Help us, girl!”

A voice was on one of the radios. Or, more accurately, was coming out of the radio.

He studied the old-school frequency dial. It was circular with a little arrow that pointed to the various frequencies listed on the slider as it spun past. It looked like something from his Grandpa's days in the service.

Ancient.

When he got close, he could read the tiny lettering. The word “Victoria” sat between numeric frequencies. As if Victoria was a frequency.

He touched nothing but got close to the speaker so he could hear what was happening.

“I'm so sorry. I can't open the door,” a girl said with a forceful tone.

“Victoria, is that you?” He was in a dream, why not call out?

There were clear sounds of zombies. Groaning. Moaning. A distant call-to-arms zombie—he was still working on what to call that one. It sounded like a major infestation of them. Though the language was animalistic, he got the gist of it. They wanted to kill his girlfriend.

“Liam?”

It was her. She was in trouble, but he could help.

“Don't let them in! You have to survive,” he shouted.

“I know. I'm trying,” she replied, sounding tired.

He waited while the noises of the infected peaked on the broadcast dial. Whereas it started with lots of people cussing and screaming, it ended with only the sounds of zombies.

Victoria's voice was distant when she finally returned. “They're all dead now.”

“I know. You did the right thing,” he said softly. His voice betrayed the happiness he felt she was still alive. He'd helped protect her.

Liam woke up to see the treads of the tank outside his window. It was daylight, now. And he'd been found.

“You have to survive,” he whispered to himself, “because I'm pretty much dead.”

Chapter 4: Homecoming

Liam had no clue what to make the treads at the window. Was it just passing by? Looking for him?

His priority was staying quiet, but with the dream he'd just had it made him wonder if he shouted out in his sleep. Grandma had woken up screaming many times on their adventures, which called to question whether her dreams were as bad as his...or his were as bad as hers. She had said she visited Grandpa Al.

It can't be coincidence.

He focused on the window above.

The miniature tank plodded forward, to the left of the window as he looked at it. When it was gone, he ran to the short staircase to the main level of the house. The layout was all different, but the piles of old junk reminded him once again that his dream of Grandma's house was probably prompted by the similarity to this one. Even the wooden stairs were old and rickety, like hers.

At the upstairs door, he took it slow. The scissors were pointed toward trouble. When the door opened, he was struck in the face by the stench of the dead. He'd grown accustomed to the distinctive odor, though here in the stuffy house it was heavy enough to coat his nostrils.

He put the sleeve of his jacket over his mouth and nose to defend against the stench. One foot was backing down the stairs when he caught motion outside the window of the well-worn kitchen in front of him. The black drone hovered nearby. Behind it, another type of drone was treading air.

Slowly, he sank to the floor.

I'm not going to die in some random basement.

He drug himself over the linoleum of the kitchen, then onto the wooden floor of the home's central hallway. The front room was darker with 1970's shag carpet and thick drapes pulled closed. As he approached, the smell got worse. His eyes began to water.

He had no choice. The open windows of the kitchen wouldn't allow him to stay there, and the lack of exits in the basement was a deal breaker. The darker living room was the best of a bunch of crappy options.

When he got in the room...

He'd seen a lot the past many weeks. Broken bodies. Horrible images of death. The captives in the cages. Zombies destroyed in the worst possible ways. But here he saw something that took his breath away...

An ancient man sat in a big cushy recliner. Compared to the chair, he was tiny. If Liam had to guess an age, he'd put the man right at one hundred.

Next to him, in a smaller chair, was a younger-looking elderly man—also dead.

“Why are you showing me this?” he whispered through his jacket sleeve. After he'd said it, he wondered who he was asking.

His belief in God had waxed and waned over the last few weeks. It was strongest in the presence of Grandma Marty but had flagged as he was exposed to more and more degradation in the Zombie Apocalypse. Victoria helped bolster his belief, but now she wasn't around, either. It was disconcerting to think his belief ultimately came down to whether or not those around him believed.

However, the sight of the two dead men in the otherwise normal-looking living room did nothing to inspire belief in a higher power. Just the opposite, in fact. These two men had given up...

He wanted to look away, but he was drawn to them. Made himself look at them. It couldn't be coincidence he'd seen three suicides in a row...

Don't let this be you, Liam.

It reassured him. He would never allow himself to reach that low that he'd take his own life.

“Fight!” the triplets had told him.

Hey, at least you don't have to climb out of a grave today.

He silently laughed, but the day was young. Anything could happen.

Finally, as he was on the verge of looking away, he saw something important. It was the cause of such devastation on the bodies of the dead men.

The double-barreled shotgun had fallen between the two chairs. And there on an end table was a box of twenty-five shells. It was worth the smell and the fright to get a real weapon.

He was already on his knees, so he crawled to the gun and pulled it from its cranny. He tried to watch both men, assuming they were going to wake up and attack him—even without a good portion of their heads. Neither moved a dead muscle.

When he had the gun, he got the shells, then moved across the room and sat up against the wall. The smell was ripe, the drones were somewhere outside, and he felt his day was looking up.

The shotgun had been chopped. Rather than the stereotypical hunting shotgun, it had been made to look like a rap gangster's weapon. The chamber broke open so he could feed in two side-by-side shells, then he snapped it shut with force. He set it over his legs, using it as a substitute comfort blanket.

Then, he waited.

A shadow passed over the front windows.

If a round came through the glass, he tried to imagine where he would run. Maybe he would jump in the chair with the old man and use him as a meat shield. He was positive something like that had been done in the zombie books he'd read. He got lost in thought, asking himself if he had it in him to pull the decaying corpse on top of him...and the drone was soon out of sight.

I have to get out of here.

2

Armed as he was, he risked getting closer to the windows to see what was happening outside.

On the front side, the house abutted the main street which was now the outer perimeter of the Forest Park refugee camp. On the far side, there were a string of urban flats with the taller medical buildings behind them. In the daylight, he saw the line of cars and buses blocking the intersection, but also the amount of work that went into boarding up each house along the street. Cars had been wedged in the narrow corridors between each house, further reinforcing the defenses.

After establishing his bearings, it was clear he'd run too far and was now on the north edge of the park. He was closer to the west side, but it was a beneficial error because it put him nearer to Victoria's campus and dorm.

He crept back to the kitchen so he could see the backyard, but he was pretty sure one of the drones was still back there. The ominous hum kept him on edge.

The glass door shattered, and something slammed into the wall near his shoulder.

Though he was already on high alert, it caused him to freeze in panic.

While he watched, a mini tank crumpled the aluminum storm door and drove itself right into the kitchen.

The black drone was behind it.

Run!

He spun around and ran for the front room. Another gunshot hit a lamp next to him as he ran. He felt the splash of glass on his right arm.

The door to the outside was ahead of him. An array of possibilities scrolled across his eyes.

Fight the drone with the shotgun. Not likely.

Run parallel to the Forest Park perimeter. Get caught by the air drones.

Run toward the perimeter across the street. Get shot by the defenders.

The door took a few seconds to unlock and open. The front screen door was also locked—the owners must have bolted the place down—giving the tank drone extra time to crunch through the kitchen table and chairs. He could hear it breaking those things apart.

When he made it onto the front stoop, he had to make his choice.

It wasn't a hard decision. He ran across the street.

It was the only scenario that didn't directly involve mindless drones.

Liam waved his arms in a regular pattern as he fled into the street. His shotgun was in one hand, but he didn't point it at the defenders. The hope was the humans over there would see him and, most importantly, not shoot him as a zombie.

“Help,” he shouted as he ran.

The gunfire background noise of the city was ebbing low at the moment, giving him a chance to be heard. The street was several lanes wide.

Much to his surprise, the defenders didn't welcome him. Gunfire came in his direction.

“I'm not a threat,” he shouted. But he also turned, and got very low. Now he was running down the middle of the street, in full view of the defenders and the drones.

Smooth move, Liam.

He looked back to the house. Two drones had come over the top of the house and were in pursuit. The tank drone was probably still inside, though he imagined it storming out of the front part of the house like some kind of mechanical Kool-Aid Man.

Ahead, he saw an incongruity in the pavement. A chance at escape. Already running, he ran as fast as his feet could carry him.

When he reached the sewer lid, he slid down and got to work lifting the circular piece of iron. As any number of books and movies would attest, all he had to do was lift it and start his climb down. There was no way the drones could follow, nor could they remove the lid if he shut it behind him.

But, he was betrayed by TV. The lid was heavier than he imagined, but it also didn't have any hand holds for him to grab. Instead, it had a series of small holes. He would need a big hook to lift it.

Torn between running some more and struggling to get a couple more fingers in so he could keep trying—he never even budged it—he felt the blast of air currents from a drone. It was the black one. The white one was nearby but seemed to be satisfied to stand off from the action.

Liam put up his hands, then stood. If he couldn't sneak down the drain, and he couldn't make it to the living people in the blockade, he wasn't going take a bullet while lying down. The drone didn't seem vulnerable to a shotgun blast, which was just as well since he left the gun lying on the ground. A part of him hoped whoever was controlling the drone would see him surrender, and not order it to kill him. The gun on the bottom was only five feet away, pointed at his neck.

Right where I got hit with the tag from the other drone.

While he marveled at the ruthless efficiency of whoever was controlling the drones, he didn't immediately hear the nearby gunfire. Only when bullets started to snap off the outer shell of the drone did the threat present itself.

He ducked back to the ground.

The drone rotated, so it faced the park defenders back at the intersection. They were only a hundred yards away. A bullet whizzed by—missing both him and the drone. Danger was everywhere.

In his haste he forgot to grab the box of ammo for the shotgun, so he only had the two shells he'd loaded earlier. Unsure if he was doing the right thing, but unwilling to do nothing, he picked up the shotgun.

More pings hit the drone; it returned fire with a few quick shots.

Liam did the only thing he could think of that might help. He aimed for the drone.

The white helicopter shot one of its tagging arrows at him as if to defend its black mate. It hit him in the meat of his shoulder and hurt much more than the last one.

Now angry and scared, he focused on putting the two rounds in the most vulnerable part of the floating menace next to him. He couldn't identify a definitive weak spot in the workings, so he just aimed for what he figured was the backside.

He pulled the first trigger and felt the powerful recoil. The target erupted in a flurry of sparks.

When he pulled the second trigger, he was a little bit off target, but it tore into the upper mantle of the drone and also probably struck the rotors. It was hard to tell because he was hesitant to look directly at it as he fired in such proximity.

The black drone dipped a couple of feet after the second shot, then recovered. A smell of burnt electrical components washed over him. It also stopped firing.

The white drone repeatedly fired at him, but the little arrows were more of a nuisance than anything.

He ran for the blockade.

3

As he ran for the people, several dogs sprang out from among the houses on that side of the road and made directly for him. In happier times the wild dogs might have been looking to him as a playmate. Today, he wasn't so sure. At the lead was a wicked-fast dark-brindled Greyhound.

He concentrated on avoiding the bodies of zombies that had been shot while keeping a good pace across the open roadway. Though it might have been unnecessary, he waved his hands from time to time, to signal he was intelligent. All it took was one nervous shooter. He'd read that trope a thousand times.

The black drone continued to sputter where it was, and the white drone followed him for a short time, continually punching him with tiny tagging spears. In a matter of seconds, the Greyhound caught him, and he believed the dog was going to jump on him and attack, but it decelerated at the last second and paced him. The other dogs surrounded him, but they didn't attack, either. He felt as if they were conducting escort duty, though he recognized he was in full-on panic.

A few dogs yelped as the drone fired tags at them.

Moments later, as he neared the intersection manned by the people of Forest Park, they waved him in between two of the large vehicles. The dogs trotted down the street, rather than follow him, leaving him to wonder about what the strange pack represented. The drone went after the dogs.

Above, several men and women aimed rifles back into the street, but they held their fire. He simultaneously hoped they'd fire on the drones, but not on the friendly dogs. He was too winded to make suggestions either way as he ran through the makeshift gate.

“Close it up,” a clear male voice called out.

Liam ran twenty yards beyond before stopping behind the barricade. The wreckage of another black drone littered the street and provided a suitable resting point. Though he only ran for a short distance, he'd spent it all on the last sprint. He was breathing hard and was hunched over when a man about his dad's age found him. He wore a blue baseball cap with a C on it, and had a cheerful face bracketed by a dark, full beard.

“You got lucky, kid. We nearly shot ya.”

“Yeah...I noticed.” He picked off the tagging darts. There were ten of them, all on his right side, and back. “Did you see those dogs?”

“Streets are full of dogs. You know how many people let their dogs go? They thought they was helping 'em out. But, yeah, them dogs was acting real strange. Happen to you a lot?”

Liam shrugged, not sure himself.

The man helped him pull the darts while he spoke. “And those droids been sweepin' nearby for a couple of days. We saw 'em down the streets toward downtown. This is as far west as they've been, so far as I know.” He moved in front of Liam so they could talk face-to-face. “But this is the first time I've seen them bother a healthy person. That's why we shot it.”

“What about this one?” Liam pointed to the broken drone on the ground.

“Dunno. My shift started a couple hours ago. Heard there was a shooting here last night. Something about sneaky zombies.”

He'd said it with something Liam read as incrimination.

Though he was covered with dried blood, which had blackened and cracked all over his chest and hands, he still wore the suit jacket and carried a now-useless shotgun. If he pretended to be a zombie, he figured he'd have no problem being a convincing specimen.

“I'm not a zombie. I promise.” He set the shotgun on the ground. “And I'm not a threat, either. I just came here to find my girlfriend.”

The man laughed. “This is about a girl? Well, why didn't you say so?” As Liam stood up straight and continued to catch his breath, the man called back behind him toward the roadblock. “Hey Sue, this boy is here on a count of a girl.”

More laughter. And a few cat calls.

“We had Black Widow here last night,” one man cried out.

Liam felt his cheeks redden, mostly from anger.

“Don't take it personally, kid. These people haven't had much to laugh about. We lost a heaping of good folks overnight. Helping you find your girl is something any of these people would rather do than shooting at those dead things, ya know?”

He calmed back down. After what he'd seen on his run, this was nothing to fret over.

“I tried to come in last night, but you shot at me.”

The man smiled. “Have you looked at yourself, kid? I don't even think your girlfriend would recognize you.”

“She and I end up like this a lot.”

The man re-appraised him. “Why do I feel you're not telling a fib?”

He reached out a hand. “My name's Randolph. I'm one of the suckers in charge of this intersection.”

“Liam. Why are you a sucker?”

Randolph looked around, apparently to see if they were out of earshot of the others. “I'm guessing you came from downtown?”

Liam nodded.

“We see the planes overhead. Hear the battle. Now these drones show up shooting. I'm managing the gate on the edge of it all. What the hell is going on out there?”

Wow, a question I can answer.

Liam thought of a movie where they made fun of an obscure guard for having the answers to some of the most secretive mysteries of the organization he worked for. Now, the table was flipped. He knew some of the big secrets of the Zombie Apocalypse, and this guard knew nothing.

“To the south there's a pit mine full of hundreds of tanks from World War II that some secretive group represented by a lizard have been stashing for fifty years. Don't bother trying to collect them, though, because a cemetery's worth of undead soldiers are guarding them. But if you do get a tank or two, don't drive them downtown. We tried that. Warthogs dropped from the sky to kill our Tigers, but we survived long enough to reach the Polar Bears. Let me tell you, if you want some tough fighters on your side, da 'Bears are the people you want. They're part of a hundred-year struggle against government corruption, led by families like mine, so it would seem.”

He took a deep breath. “And finally, the United States government has been infiltrated by a secretive bureaucratic organization called the National Internal Security. They're trying to hunt down elderly people like my great-grandma, but they're also leading a massive convoy from the East Coast to their new home here in St. Louis. The Polar Bears, led by a school teacher holed up in a building downtown,” he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, “is waiting for them. Oh yeah, and my mom used my video game to lead a national march across the country before the zombies came.”

Randolph watched him the whole time and nodded where appropriate. Liam waited for the laughter, but it never came.

“Your mom was a leader in the Patriot Snowball?”

“You've heard of it?”

At that, Randolph finally did laugh.

4

They chatted about his statement for a few minutes. Randolph turned out to be an active listener who asked a lot of pointed questions about many aspects of his previous outline of events. He took Liam's story at face value, which pleased him greatly, but they couldn't make any sense of the tail end of his tale. Neither had any clue about the drones. Liam explained the relationship between the floating ones and the tank model on the ground, but it was a mystery who controlled them.

“We know the Army's nearby. They shoot those machine guns up and down the roads in the night. They spray rounds down their firing lanes, knocking down lots of infected. Only zombies would be dumb enough to get into those kill zones.”

Ummmmm.

“We have to hide when they shoot because those things travel up the road to our blockade. Had one woman get clipped when they first did it. She'll live...”

They both stood looking back toward downtown as the conversation lulled. It gave him the chance to look at the reverse side of the blockade, where the shooters were on watch.

“Why don't the zombies come over the top of your roadblock?” He'd seen them stack up and get over larger obstacles.

“We've had some close calls, but those days seem to be gone. Now...they wander in alone for the most part.”

“You think they're thinning out? There were still a lot of them downtown yesterday morning.”

“I don't know about downtown, but out here in the Central West End, we haven't seen groups of them for days.”

“But there are still piles of them in the street.” He had wondered about the bodies even before this street. Back when he went into the pit mine, he'd noted many of the same zombies he'd faced on day three were still lying along the railroad tracks on the property. It was like they didn't decompose.

“Yeah, we have nowhere to bury the dead, so we haven't been exposing ourselves out in the street to collect them. We take fire from resident human stragglers over there, just to keep us from trying.”

“I was shot at, too,” he reminded Randolph. “It's the Wild West.”

“You're safe here. We got somethin' good back in the park. If you've been there, you know.”

The park!

“Thank you, Randolph, for getting me through your line. I'll never forget it. But I have to keep moving.”

“I understand. My wife is holding together a little lean-to in the camp. It's what passes for a life, until we get back on our feet.”

“You think this is going to end?”

“Kid, I did a tour in Afghanistan, right at the beginning. I saw town after town of people living in rock huts. No clean water. Little food. No concept of hygiene. Weather and landscape that would make most men want to lay down and die. Yet they did just dandy,” he said wistfully. “And so can we. Every structure you see is a rock hut. Basic shelter. Hygiene is going to get dicey. Food...iffy. We have good climate, lots of vegetation, good crop potential. We have it way better than those savages, don't ya think?”

“But we have zombies. Are we going to fight them forever?” He wasn't sure why the guy would know...

Randolph thought about it, then answered in a way that reminded him of any number of school lectures. “Are you willing to fight them forever?”

Liam thought about a scene in the far future. He and Victoria are sitting on the front porch of a large farmhouse, watching their kids play nearby. A zombie comes stumbling out of a row of corn...he has his rifle at the ready in a flash. But Victoria, the better shot, puts it down first.

Then he imagines himself on his deathbed. A very old man. And a zombie comes crashing down the hallway of a hospital. Too weak to use a rifle, he lifts his lightweight 22 caliber pistol and puts a round into the brain pan of the undead.

Vigilance would be the price of life, going forward. Unless a cure could be found. Something to either reverse the process or...eliminate all of them at once. Right there, at the intersection, only vigilance looked like a realistic possibility.

“Sir, I just walked out of a building of heavily-armed resistance fighters and cleared six miles of Zombie Hell to be with a girl I just met. There is nothing I wouldn't do to protect her.” He felt himself grip the empty shotgun.

Randolph held out his hand to shake goodbye. “Liam, my young friend, it's going to take an attitude like that to get through this. What humanity needs now is fighters. People to hold back the savages. You've seen what it's like out there, and things haven't even gotten bad yet.”

They shook briefly. Liam had a look on his face that was easy to read.

“I know. You think the worst is over. Most people do.” He swept his hands around in all directions. “See all this? All those people back in the park. It's too much. The Afghans got by because they're spread out and have minimal needs. Our people have lots of needs.”

Randolph laughed sarcastically. “Drugs. Have you seen people in withdrawal from drugs? You seen anybody with the DT's because they got no more alcohol?”

Liam didn't know what to make of the lost souls back in the park. They might fit the description, though as far as he knew they were still on drugs.

“Some people will do anything. Absolutely anything. To get more drugs. And that doesn't include most of the people who died outright when they ran out of lifesaving medicines. Some of those people will still be out there, too. They need medicine every day, just to stay alive. What do you think they'd be willing to do to secure a few extra days of existence?”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” he said with sureness. “And until we all have our own stone huts, and our own source of reliable food to go with them, shooting the odd zombie is going to be the easy part. Knowing who to trust from your fellow man. That's going to be the part that requires real vigilance.”

Again, the concept of building a good group of people around him seemed to come to the fore. He and Victoria were the core; he was sure of that. He wished he could get his mom back, without her baggage of being important. Everyone else he'd hoped would join his team had either died or gone missing. He was a survival molecule consisting of exactly one atom. “Team Liam,” as he'd once described his survival group, needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Time to go find my other half.

"I've got to go."

Randolph shook his hand.

"Go get her, kid. Live a long life. Do it for old Randolph," he said with a cheeky smile.

"I will."

5

Liam continued his journey for another couple of blocks, but being inside the cordon around the park made the jog pleasant. After a few minutes, he reached the last street between concrete and grass. He'd almost gone full circle. He studied where he was. He entered the park midway between Victoria's dorm and Hans' house. He desperately wanted to run directly to Victoria's dorm room—where he hoped she'd be—but he had a couple of stops he needed to make. With people ahead, he tucked the shotgun into his suit jacket sleeve.

First, he ran to a nearby creek in the park. The water wasn't deep, nor particularly clear, but he wanted the blood off. He stripped down to his black boxers and walked in with his sneakers on. If the people nearby cared, they didn't voice any objections. For all he knew, the creek was for clean drinking water. He hoped not, since he was turning it practically red in his little pool.

He got out and air dried for a few minutes, content to rest on the grass. The creek was in an area of the park with relatively few people compared to elsewhere. Several black families had congregated together on a nearby hillside, while many more white families huddled downstream, on the other side of the creek.

Is this how it's always going to be?

To be fair, it could have been coincidence. He'd heard of racism, and had interacted with several different races of people on his journeys, but had never seen it in real life. His dad gave a passing mention to race when he was teaching him how to drive to Grandma's house in the city, but he couldn't recall the specifics of it.

When he thought he was dry enough, he pulled on his jeans. He ended up walking those back into the creek, since they were covered in gore, too. When he was done, only his empty shotgun and the jacket were dry.

Good enough. I'm outta here.

“Hey, guy. Don't go that way.”

The voice came from behind him. A greasy-looking young man, not much older than him, strode up. His red hair perched on top of his high forehead. His clothes were torn and dirty like he'd started the Apocalypse by visiting the charity bins for his attire.

“You want to stay away from them,” he nodded menacingly to the black families on the low hill. They were between him and his destination.

“Um, why is that?”

He cackled. “You nuts? They caused this disease. You touch them. You die.”

He was positively sure that was false, but not surprised rumors like that existed. The man didn't look like he was in the mood for debate.

“Oh, thanks.” He started to walk off.

“Hey now. Just a minute. There's a fee for good advice.”

Liam knew how this was going to go down. In one explosive action, he launched into a sprint. He aimed for a nearby group of people—color was unimportant—and had to excuse himself as he deflected off the arm of a standing woman. There was another creek behind them, so he had to readjust to his right, toward another group of campers a couple of dozen yards away.

The young guy was in pursuit, and though Liam seemed to have surprised him initially, he was taller, and by appearances, faster, than him. He was also cutting off some of the gap by angling toward where Liam was running.

To compensate, Liam turned and jumped into the creek. It was actually hip-deep there, so it took him many seconds to get across. He heard a splash behind as he got up to speed on the far side. Frantic for somewhere to go, he searched for a police car or other sign of authority.

I could use the scissors on him.

He laughed inwardly. Scissors would be more effective on a living person than a zombie, but it would be a weapon of very last resort. He'd long since lost the ability to get the drop on the guy.

There were a lot of people now, sitting and standing in small groups within the park, and many were angry at him for running through their space. The only consolation was complaints from those same people when the greasy guy went through.

Inspiration struck. He turned right, heading north.

His only real scare came when a burly guy tried to grab him. He figured a casual observer might think he was running from the law—or what passed for it in the park—and had tried to make a citizen's arrest. The guy managed to get a hand on his jacket, but he spun and let it slide off. It took real skill to keep the shotgun in his hands while he pulled that maneuver, but he managed. When the man saw the gun, he put up his own hands in a “Sorry, bro” gesture. Liam let the jacket drop.

Finally, he ran up the small hill he'd seen while taking his bath. As expected, the young fellow refused to pursue him, and instead stayed well behind while flinging insulting names and dire warnings about their next meeting.

He felt bad for using the black people as his shield, and he hoped his actions wouldn't get them in trouble in some way, so he kept running through their area, though with more care so as not to stir any resentments. If he managed to piss them off, he'd be out of places to run for help.

All I want is to find Victoria. Is that too much to ask?

6

Next, he stopped at Hans Grubmeyer's mansion to get ammo for his street sweeper. By an agreement between the old man and the Patriot Snowball movement, he'd consented to let them—

Am I “them”?

—use the supplies in his home in exchange for allowing him to call his people to deliver the Tiger tanks to him. Something they never did...

He decided to go in through the back door. Unsure if it would attract attention to himself, it seemed the stealthiest way to enter. The threat of the greasy runner kept him in the proverbial shadows.

Plus, he realized all the ammo was stacked on the back porch. He searched the pallets of boxes until he found a huge tower of shotgun shells. With much effort, he tore the wrapping and a paper box so he could grab a few shells. The first two went in his gun; the rest he stuffed in his jeans pockets until they bulged like chipmunk cheeks.

He walked in through the back door, expecting to find one of the Polar Bears. They were supposed to be guarding the place.

“Hello?” he called. Then, thinking he was being funny, he continued, “Honey, I'm back from the Zombie Apocalypse.” If Victoria was here, he wanted her to hear the funny Liam she'd been missing.

He wanted to hear her laughter.

The hallways were exactly as he remembered them. Despite the size of the mansion, the walking paths were narrow crevices because boxes of supplies were stacked to the ceiling everywhere there was floor space. All paths led to the front room.

He saw the foot on the ground and cradled his shotgun. A quick look behind him—for an ambush—showed nothing. The foot faced down, like someone was dead on the floor. Already committed, and having announced himself loudly, he continued to look around the corner so he could see into the main room.

Bodies were everywhere.

Oh God.

The two Polar Bears he'd met before he'd left were dead. They'd been pushed to one side of the room, but the nasty black pool of blood beneath them suggested they'd been dead for a while.

There were several of the infantry-ninja characters he associated with the NIS. He was surprised to realize he recognized them. One was the bodybuilder woman he'd seen the previous morning when they first got to the tanks. The other was Cliff Hammerich. He appeared to be dead as he sat up against a bunch of wooden crates, but he held a large wooden box over his outstretched legs.

Liam was going to investigate when he saw a light-colored long-sleeved shirt hanging on the back of a folding chair. In a room full of military equipment and dead soldiers, it stood out like a flare in the darkness.

Cautiously, he crossed the living room until he could reach for the shirt. He held it to his face and took a deep breath. In that instant, he knew who's it was. Was she dead in this house, or had she gotten out?

The shotgun felt great in his hands. It was a pretty good weapon for sneaking around the tight spaces of the mansion. He eyed the various hallways out of the room, wondering if there was an intelligent way to conduct a search. While looking down the left hallway, his eyes fell once more to the box on Cliff's lap. It seemed to call out to be opened.

“What were you trying to protect?” he quietly asked.

It was about the size of a breadbox. He gently lifted the lid. A white piece of paper sat on a bunch of rags.

“Dear Elsa. You lose.”

It meant nothing to him, so he gingerly pulled the towels and cloth rags out of the box. He didn't know what to expect, but the digital readout of numbers counting down was among the last.

“15...14...”

He sprang up, suddenly doubting which way he should run.

Go back where I know it's safe, or go out the front?

He decided to try the front door. It was locked. It wasn't just locked, he realized, it had been boarded shut.

Use the window!

Hans had shot through the open window when they first met. He knew it was big enough to escape through. But someone had placed a wire mesh over the windows and screwed the wire to the wall.

“Oh, shit!” he blurted.

The whole place had been made into a fortress.

Unsure how many seconds he had left, he took off for the rear of the house. He spared one second to grab Victoria's shirt on his way out.

His Zombie Apocalypse danger meter was pegged in the red zone. But while escaping an exploding house was the first mission, he also couldn't help think about falling and hurting his ankle. Once again, even something as innocuous as a sprained ankle could get him killed. He lost a second or two because of his extra care, but he whizzed by the porch full of ammo—the danger meter found a few extra bars—and headed straight into the palatial backyard.

His goal was a lone ancient pine tree in the middle of the grassy landscape. Fifty feet away.

He was halfway there when the first explosion rocked the house.

Keep going!

A second later a second tremor shook the ground. Each moment he expected a great fireball would reach out and smother him in death.

Two more blasts, and this time he sensed the heat, though it sounded like the explosions were still inside the house.

He was feet from the tree when he finally got what he expected. A massive explosion ripped out the back of the house and he felt a hot barbecue grill blast of heat on his bare back.

He jumped for the safety of the tree.

His only thought was whether Victoria was burning inside.

Chapter 5: Bathed in Fire

Liam woke up against the protective barrier of the gigantic pine tree. He'd found the only cover in the entire yard he could reach before the house exploded, and it saved him.

Thank you, Mr. Lodgepole Pine.

A prayer of thanks to God was on the tip of his tongue when a man in a military uniform popped through the shrubs near the back of the large yard. A black battle rifle pointed menacingly in his direction. Liam's sad-looking shotgun lay in the grass a few feet away. He'd let go of that, but had held Victoria's shirt during the explosion and subsequent cook off of all the ammo—a show which continued even now.

Six more soldiers appeared. He recognized the whir of a small drone hovering nearby, though they kept it out of sight. The men kept their distance from the house fire. Most took a knee, but one man jogged through their line and covered the distance to him. He kept the tree between himself and the fire.

Liam was too surprised to say anything as the man approached.

The Marine was far less jovial than their last meeting. Weeks ago, back at Camp Hope, Liam and Victoria had “escaped” into the woods, rather than help the military.

“Mr. Peters,” he said with maximum hostility.

Over the days and weeks of the disaster, he'd had his run-ins with the United States Marine Corps, and he'd discussed it endlessly in the down times with Mel, Phil, and his father. One thing that had come up was the proper battle cry. It was different for each branch of the military. He had no defense for what he'd done, so he was left with falling on his sword.

“Oorah, sir.”

“Don't give me shit, son.” Lt. Colonel Joseph Brandyweis strode next to him and looked around the trunk of the great tree so he could see the ruins of the mansion. He whistled. “I knew you were trouble. I just knew it. You teenagers are nothing but.” He turned back to Liam. “The world is burning in disease, and my task is hunting down a snot-nosed punk kid who seems to be at the scene of every big fire—and here you are causing the damned things. Is this all you've been doing?”

“Sir, I didn't cause this. It was—”

“Save it. I can't trust a word you say. Not after that stunt back in the woods.”

“I gave you that phone number!” He was a little more emotional than he wanted. But it was true he did give him the phone number of where Grandma Marty was being held. He didn't want that overlooked.

“Son, do you know how many of my men died because of that phone number?” His tone was only slightly less hostile.

Liam had a pretty good guess. He'd seen the bodies of the Marines, not to mention he saw the other V-22 Osprey crash in Busch Stadium while his plane dusted off stuffed with survivors. That was a question he didn't want to touch.

“I had no idea any of that would happen,” he said with proper contrition. Then, hoping with all his will he could change the direction of the conversation, he continued. “How did you find me? I've been...lost. By myself. For days.”

The colonel studied him. Liam switched places and imagined what he must look like. He'd cleaned himself up, but only superficially. He still had no shirt on and carried angry red welts from being stuck a dozen times by the tagging darts. His blue jeans were muddy, bloody, and dirty. His once-colorful running shoes were now drab brown. His hair was probably standing straight up like a troll doll.

He innocently ran a hand through his hair, as he wondered if it had been burned off in the explosion. His fingers ran through actual hair, causing him to sigh in relief.

“You look like hell, I'll give you that,” he said while scanning both sides of the yard. “And where's your girlfriend? She involved in this, too?”

Liam felt the sting of emotion. The mere thought of Victoria had caused him to tear up in front of the Polar Bear leaders when he was in their headquarters. He was not going to let that happen, ever again. Instead of being sad at his separation from her, he let himself be angry.

“No. No, she's not,” he said without really knowing the truth. “I've just spent days trying to get to Forest Park because she's supposed to be here. I walked up to this house because she was helping an old man here as his nurse last time I was with her. I found a bunch of—”

Can I trust you?

“—National Internal Security assassins lying dead on the floor of the place, along with some of my friends, and when I opened a box sitting on one of the assassin's laps, it had a curt 'Dear Elsa' note and a bomb inside. The only thing of Victoria's I found inside was this shirt. She wasn't in there,” he said with authority.

He expected an angry reply. Braced for it.

“What do you mean, a 'Dear Elsa' note?”

Liam was surprised. “Well, um, there was a note written on a paper inside the box. It said 'Dear Elsa. You lose.' though I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.”

“I don't know, either. But there is a Ms. Elsa Cantwell running the show in Cairo, Illinois. In fact, I had to avoid her to get my last Osprey in the air.” He looked at Liam with what he read as sympathy. “Everyone is stretched thin out here. Me and my boys are operating at the limits of our authority. Your grandma said you were risking your life to find a cure to this mess. She believed it. I didn't believe when she told me, but I've been thinking about it ever since. You've been at the center of every disaster my unit has had since the beginning. You should be dead ten times over. Here you are standing outside another firestorm.” The building behind them continued to flame up and cook off ammunition. “For the love of God, will you tell me what's driving you to always be in danger?”

“Only if we can get away from this fire.”

“Deal.”

2

Later, after moving a few backyards down from the burning home, he sat down on with the Lt. Colonel, and—as he had with the Polar Bears—explained much of what he knew about “the outside.” The only difference was he didn’t want to give away his mom’s role or the existence of the Patriot Snowball headquarters nearby. He painted the patriots with a light brush.

Brandyweis held a long, penetrating stare after his tale was done. Liam pretended to adjust his new black t-shirt, which had been liberated from a nearby abandoned mansion by one of the Marines. It had a picture of a honey badger, which he thought was hilarious. Still, he tried to meet the man’s glare, if only to convey that his story was mostly true. He didn’t lie. He just left certain parts out.

“So you went into a nightmare quarry filled with zombies based on an anonymous text message from someone in Utah? Son, are you having me on?”

“It’s true. We already had videos from Colonel McMurphy showing how dead people had been infected and became zombies, too. I think he was terrified of them. We were pretty sure those experiments were taking place near the national cemetery by that mine. And they were,” he said confidently.

Brandyweis held his cloth cap in his hand and slapped it against his knee. “Dammit. I was hoping you’d have something actionable.”

“You could go in the mine and see the graves for yourself. There are a lot of zombies down there.”

“So you keep telling me,” he said with skepticism. “Almost as if you want me to go down there and never come back.” Though the words were biting, he made it clear he didn’t believe Liam would do that.

“No, I wouldn’t recommend anyone go back down there...ever. I’ve never seen that many zombies in one place. Although—”

He’d left out that the cavern deep inside the mine was filled with military hardware and a big security vault door. While he still didn’t know the relationship between that room and the Patriot Snowball, he was ninety-nine percent certain they had nothing to do with it. They’d lost men investigating it, too. Yet, trusting Brandyweis had its own hazards.

“Yes?”

“Well, it’s just that I did see that many zombies in one other place. The research facility where I rescued my grandma. The zombies stood around the base of that building like they were lined up to get into a rock concert. Victoria and I zip-lined across them from a bridge, but there were thousands upon thousands, in one big group.”

“Zip-lined?” He eyed Liam again as if waiting for the big crack up. When Liam managed to hold his stare, he went on. “And that’s where the big pile of elderly is located?”

“Yes, Douglas Hayes and his research team were doing experiments at the top of the structure, and they dropped the dead people down into the lobby. It was one of the more gruesome things I’ve seen.”

“OK, at least I know you aren’t making that up. My team reporting seeing the same thing when they were in there. But they came in through the sewers...” He stopped talking. They both knew the fate of that team of Marines.

Brandyweis held his ear as he listened to his comms gear. He quietly replied “Affirmative” but continued to chat with Liam.

They sat on some patio chairs while behind another large mansion.

“I sent my boys into that tower thinking it was a legitimate research facility. We followed up on the phone number you gave us. Our intel said that phone was inside, and you said your grandma—and your phone—would be with Hayes. We even knew Homeland Security had rented the building for a year before the disaster—while the structure was being built. I had no reason to suspect we’d be ambushed by a damned research team.”

He sighed deeply.

“I’m not going to make that mistake again, but the world keeps getting more and more dangerous. If we’d found you a few minutes earlier, we might have followed you into that mansion and me—and my team—would now be dead.”

So would I, don’t forget.

“I’m beginning to think you lead a charmed life or something.”

Liam was quick to react, having had the same thoughts recently. “No, sir. I’m not charmed. My dad died from a stupid leg wound a few days ago. My girlfriend has gone missing. My grandma is probably dead if Cairo is under siege. Hell, my whole family is on a government kill list—”

He hadn’t intended to bring that up.

“—and, uh, one of my friends got blown up by a fifty-five-gallon barrel of explosives.”

“Back it up. Tell me about this kill list.”

Liam didn’t want to reveal anything he knew abut the Patriot Snowball, and though he was related to one of the primary leaders of the group—his Grandma Rose, who was also a congresswoman—he steered in another, less truthful direction.

“When I was in the Riverside Hotel to rescue my grandma, there was another guy there. A guy I think helped to kill your Marines. His name was Duchesne. He, uh, never said his first name. When he found out who I was, he said my whole family was on a kill list. Though he and Hayes were part of the same organization, Hayes said he removed my family from the list. The two argued about it.”

An embellishment of the truth, if ever there was one. After speaking it, he briefly thought about his own book. Once written, and with everything placed in sequence, would people like Brandyweis hate him for stretching the truth like this? Was history always written like that?

“Any idea why your whole family would be on a list?”

“They didn’t say.”

It’s OK to lie when you're protecting your family.

3

“I’ve got to make my move, son. I can’t park my oversized rescue plane for more than a few minutes here in the city, or it will get overwhelmed with refugees looking for a way out. There are a hundred gawkers watching your mansion burn. But I can’t have it flying around waiting for me, either. I need you to tell me what comes next, and we’ll go there together.”

“What comes next,” he said wistfully.

I’d like to settle down with Victoria, have a house with a white-picket fence…

“I appreciate your offer, I really do. But I just ran all the way across the city to find my girlfriend. She's my mission, right now.”

Liam waited for the angry Marine Corps drill sergeant routine.

Brandyweis gave him a thoughtful look, with the same deep fatigue everyone carried. “I'm up against a wall. I've got to deliver. But I’m going to give you six hours to find your girl. When you do, bring her back here,” he pointed to the stone pavers of the patio below him, “and we’ll pull you both out of the city.”

“What about you? Where will you be?”

“This may surprise you, but I can’t walk ten feet in a crowd anymore without getting swamped with requests for help. Word gets around, you see. People think the military abandoned them, and when they see us, some of them take that real serious.”

“Sir, the military did abandon some people. The entire East Coast, in fact.”

He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Elsa and her team assured us it was an orderly evacuation and that everyone was invited to come to St. Louis in the super convoy. Operation Renew. I’ve seen the images, though. It looks anything but organized, and people are pissed.”

“Is Elsa a general?”

Brandyweis laughed a healthy laugh. “Oh, no. No. She’s part of Homeland Security. They’ve taken over crisis management, which put her in charge of the defense of Cairo. None of the civilian leaders wanted the military in charge, though they still wanted us around to do the fighting, of course.”

“Homeland Security? Duchesne mentioned them as his cover.” He thought back to their first meeting on overpass south of St. Louis. “And he was really an NIS agent. Hayes said he was with Homeland once, but also with the CDC.”

The colonel’s jovial attitude nosedived. “Elsa is some sort of double agent?”

Liam waited for the thought-process to reach the goal line.

“No, that’s not possible. We had orders from multiple chains of command, instructing us to defer to her leadership in southern Illinois.”

Fumble.

“I don’t know what this National Internal Security stuff is, but it can’t be everywhere.”

“How do I know you aren’t NIS?” Liam asked in a non-threatening voice.

Brandyweis looked at him angrily, but caught himself. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. If there is a secretive group running around infiltrating our research teams, it could be anyone. But if I was NIS, why would I run my boys up that tower to have them killed? Why would I sacrifice one of my Ospreys in that scrum in the stadium?” His voice trailed off.

“I wasn’t serious,” Liam offered.

“No, you have every right. If what you say is true—and I have every intention of trusting you on that—you’ve been betrayed multiple times. You should doubt everyone’s motives, including mine.”

Liam felt a little guilty that he lied to him, but he remained silent until he thought back to that meeting with Duchesne in the hotel where he revealed he’d been tracking Victoria’s cell phone.

“It might help me trust you if you told me how you found me.”

After a few moments, Brandyweis stood from his chair. “It was pretty easy, I’m afraid, and not very creative.” He waved one of his men over. Liam expected it to be Jax—it just seemed that was destiny—but it was a well-tanned man with cropped hair and a serious face.

“This is Lance Corporal Thomas. He’s our resident techie. Show ‘em what you got there. Tell me who this is.” He pointed to Liam.

The black box-like device was about the size of a laptop computer. It had a screen on the top portion, and a keyboard on the lower section and a small saucer-like extension sticking out of the keyboard. After typing some stuff in, he held the device so the saucer pointed at Liam, then after a few moments, the Thomas read the report.

“Liam Peters. Age, sixteen. Blood type, AB neg. Current residence...”

The report was very thorough. Not only did it give details about who he was, it also gave details about his health, family’s health, and possible diseases he may one day get. That was magical enough, but when it started to get into known associations he saw where it was going…

“Victoria Hennessey, resident of Denver, Colorado. Denise Rawlings, resident of Jacksonville, Florida. Haylee—”

“OK, I get it!” he said with mock anger. It scared him that the computer had that much information about him, and it doubly scared him that it could know he had made contact with the source of the Patriot Snowball, but he had to know how such a thing was possible. “How the hell can it know who I’ve met? I only saw Denise for a few minutes yesterday. She killed herself when I was trying to save her...” His exasperation masked his fear that the strange device would list every contact he’d had earlier that day. His mom, Haylee, Travis, Jason Hawkes. The list went on—all enemies of the United States government, apparently.

Brandyweis motioned to the other Marine, giving permission to reveal the secret, he hoped.

“We were given these DNA sniffers a few days ago, down in Cairo. They wanted us to take read outs of the dead bodies on the ground so we could start to account for all the infected. They were perfect because we didn't have to touch them. They said special teams were going out with tracking darts so we could then find and identify the bodies.”

The colonel continued. “It was a long shot, but I put your name into the database and it returned several hits this morning. It says you’ve been tagged twenty-two times,” he laughed. “What have you been doing to get yourself tagged over and over?”

He gave the Marines his most serious look. “I don’t think they’re tagging zombies. I think they’re putting everyone down who’s still alive in that part of the city where I escaped.”

Both men laughed. Brandyweis responded. “Son, I appreciate your honesty, but—”

Liam held up his hand. “Wait! Where is the drone that you had with you when you found me by that tree?”

He got blank stares.

He clearly enunciated his words, as if speaking clearly would make them understand faster. “When you found me by the tree, I heard a drone. I know what they sound like. It was hovering close by. You had a drone.”

“Son, if we had a drone I’d have no reason not to tell you. There was no drone in the air when we found you.”

Liam scanned the big yard, confident he was being watched. He didn’t hear the whirl of copter blades, but his imagination insisted it was out there.

“We should get inside,” he said with the first hint of panic.

“OK, you wanna tell me why.”

“Sir, there was a drone. I’ve been running from them all morning. These things aren’t just tagging zombies; they're tagging everyone. And when they tag you, the next thing they do is shoot you.”

They busted through the swing-away patio doors of the mansion—no one had come out to chase them away—and made their way inside. Liam was comforted to have a roof over his head, and thrilled to have Marines surrounding him, but wary of the responsibility he was putting on himself by aligning with them. Though the colonel didn’t blame him for getting his men killed, he took it upon himself to give them every ounce of information they’d need, going forward.

It took him fifteen minutes to explain his encounters with the various drones. Then, another thirty of follow-up before they believed him. As time passed he began to doubt his own memory. Maybe there wasn't a drone, after all.

Still, he'd done what he could to prepare them. Just in case. Whatever happened next would not be on him.

4

The little tank appeared at the far end of the yard. Liam, almost glad to see it, pointed. “I told you!”

“Yeah, looks like you were right. Now let us do our jobs. You keep your head down,” Brandyweis said emphatically.

“Can I have my shotgun back?”

“No, you’ll be fine. You have six of meanest hombres in St. Louis guarding you.”

It was silly, he knew, but he pulled out the shotgun shells from his pocket and noisily tossed them all to the floor. He had quite a few, and he took his time. When it didn't have the effect he hoped, he continued along another line of questioning.

“I thought you had ten men?”

“I do. Four are keeping the Osprey in flight. Just stay down.”

Liam couldn’t guess how the Marines were going to handle the drones, but he knew they’d have a much easier job of it than he did. He assumed as soon as it was clear the Marines had him in custody they would depart.

“If they think you have me captured, won’t they go away?”

“That’s an excellent question. But I’m not going to risk it.”

The tank trundled through the overgrown grass of the yard. It wasn’t quite the same model he’d seen in the pet store, but he couldn’t readily identify what made it so. It had the same treads, was about the same size, and had a gun on top...but it had some extra junk on the top surface. It seemed smaller in the large grassy yard, but he figured it was about the size of a typical riding lawnmower.

“Give it a warning shot, Max.”

A loud crack came from the floor above. He couldn’t see outside, but there was no explosion, so he figured the sniper wasn’t aiming for a hit.

The colonel got up to the hole in the glass. “We are United States Marines. I order you to stand down,” he bellowed. He casually ducked back like he didn’t expect a response, and the other glass door shattered as the reports of gunshots rolled across the yard.

Liam popped up, against orders, to see the scene. The little tank in the yard was stopped, and looked like a lost child. No smoke from a gunshot. The shots had to have come from elsewhere.

“There are more drones,” he yelled, though he thought it was pretty obvious.

“Or ground pounders. We may not be alone.”

He hadn’t thought of that. If the NIS could track him, they may have figured now was the time to eliminate him.

A powerful green laser came from the hedge at the back of the yard. It pointed above Liam—to the second floor. Then a shot followed.

“Take it out,” he ordered on his radio.

The Marines fired at will. He put his head down as a natural reaction to gunfire.

The familiar crack of the sniper rifle rose over the din of all the other guns, including the colonel’s battle rifle. Brandyweis edged to a window, broke the glass, then waited for a response. There were several windows on the back of the ground floor of the house, and he broke each in turn. When he reached the last window in the large living room, he turned back toward Liam with a serious look.

“Get down!”

It reminded him of the frustration he’d often visited upon his dad. In their arguments over the past six months, he reveled in angering his old man so that he’d loose his cool. The colonel’s frustration at something as simple as keeping his head down was the same tone his father often had. He complied.

A couple of rounds came through the back window near Brandyweis. They struck some wildlife heads that had been mounted to the wall. An impressive deer with a massive pair of antlers fell from its mount after it had been hit.

A large mirror on the wall followed suit.

The colonel fired through a broken window, then pulled back.

Liam chanced another look and saw the drone tank had moved about half the distance to the house from where it was last.

He felt the air move near his head. A pop from the yard followed the clink of more glass behind him where the bullet had struck.

“The drone is getting closer,” he offered.

The colonel looked at him with a scowl, perhaps seeing the same futility as his father. Then he put a few more shots on target before again pulling back from the lead flight path.

A green laser swept the room. When it struck the broken glass of the windows or the remains of the mirrors on the rear wall, it broke into multiple directions like a laser show he’d seen at the Missouri Planetarium.

While he thought about that more pleasant memory, a small drone came in through the open back windows. It was hovering above him before he had a chance to move. It was different than the bigger helicopter drones he’d seen earlier in the day. It was more like the tiny drones he’d watched come out of the compartments on the Tiger tanks. It hovered on four small fans but consisted mainly of one central hull with a shiny black orb.

He searched for a tiny gun or even a tagging device, but it appeared harmless. He did begin to crawl backward, hoping to find a table or something solid he could put between him and the trespasser, but it exploded over his head before he got anywhere. It slammed to the ground and its fans shut off. The colonel had used his rifle to good effect.

“Run upstairs, kid. They know exactly where you are.”

He stood up to run, but the green laser found him.

I know! Get down!

5

Liam didn’t wait to find out if he’d been hit. He’d gotten good at fast-crawling over the past several weeks, and he crawled for all he was worth. First into a nearby hallway, then he searched for the stairs up.

Another Marine stood in the front foyer, peeking out a window next to the front door. His back was to him, so he wasn’t noticed.

The stairs were nearby. He was surprised that two of the green lasers blazed through two different windows and nearly touched when they reached him. Rather than dip, he jumped a few steps and continued upward. Too late, a bullet bit at the steps below him.

He hesitated at the top step. Daylight shone in the open hallway on the second floor, meaning a drone could probably see him once he made himself visible.

A few seconds into his deliberations, an explosion rocked the home. Smoke wafted up the stairs, and he could tell the explosion happened at the front door. The body of the Marine guard was on the floor.

Crap. Crap. Crap!

“Kid, over here!” Another Marine stood across the hallway, toward the far end. He waved from inside the door frame of a room.

Liam looked back down. The engine of a drone tank spun up, and it was moments before he saw the treads appear through the smoke. He threw himself into the upstairs hallway, righted himself, then fast-crawled again toward the open door.

“There’s a drone tank coming up those stairs. They killed your man at the front door.”

“Roger. Get in. Get low,” the man said with a gruff voice.

He slid into a huge tiled bathroom, then backed up against a clawfoot bathtub. The Marine continued to guard the door, his weapon drawn. Liam couldn’t help but notice he had a knife belted to his leg and carried a sidearm in a holster on his hip.

“No, kid. Get in the tub,” he said with force. He pulled a grenade from his chest rigging but waited until Liam was in the tub before he pulled the pin.

“Grenade in the front stairwell,” he said calmly. Liam expected him to yell, but the Marines seemed to be communicating via the comm links in their ears.

A few moments later, his tub rocked.

The Marine shut the door and ran over to him. The look on his face was a grim determination. “Kid, you won’t believe this. A flying drone caught my grenade and carried it down the hall before it exploded.”

It didn’t phase Liam. Nothing would anymore. “Can you try another?”

“All out. Been using them a lot, lately.”

“So what do we do now?” He climbed out of the tub, eyeing the window, and the trees of the backyard.

“What is this thing coming after you? Does it have a weakness?”

“I used a shotgun to mess up a flying drone from the back, but the colonel took my gun. I saw a drone tank before, but I ran instead of fighting it.”

As he talked quietly, he walked to the back window. The Marine yanked him back a split second before the green laser appeared.

“No going that way.”

“Sir, we’re trapped up here. Bathroom. North end of house,” he reported to the team. Then, facing him, he continued, “All right, kid. You get back in the tub. We’ll see where this goes.”

“I can fight. Give me a gun.” He eyed the sidearm.

“Well, it can’t hurt.” He pulled the gun out of his holster and handed it to him, barrel facing down. “Just don’t shoot me,” he said with a nervous laugh.

He jumped in the tub again, disappointed at how heavy the gun felt.

“The safety’s off, kid.”

There was nowhere to hide, so the Marine stood behind where the door would open. The large shower area was glass, so that wasn’t an option for anyone.

It was sixty seconds before he heard the engine of the tank drone in the hallway. It struggled to get up the steps, as the other had back at the pet store, but it sounded smooth as it trundled down the hall to his door. He jumped at the first bang on the wood.

Two green lasers appeared in the air above him.

“Sir, the kid is in a big tub. Safe for a few.”

The concussive force of the Marine’s rifle startled him again. He’d expected the drone to be shooting, but if there were lasers on the second floor, it meant the floaters were directly outside. They were engaging the only target they could see.

A spent shell fell into the tub, into his shirt sleeve.

“Ouch!”

He squirmed to get it out, and in the process stuck his head above the lip of the tub. He saw at least one drone outside, though there were two beams. The crack of wood followed.

“Get down!” his companion yelled between deafening blasts.

Many shots ensued, including the sound of the drone tank’s gun. He recognized it for what it was.

The Marine hit the floor screaming in pain, but he continued to fire.

I can’t let him die for me.

He stuck up his head, intending to fire his gun. The battle rifle was pointed right at him. Again, he ducked. After the Marine shot out through the window, the whine of an engine was punctuated by a violent crash against the window frame.

That was his cue. He got to his knees, then aimed at the tank drone. It looked twice as large as he remembered it, now that it was only a few feet away. The gun was unable to aim down at the injured man below it, so it was trying to back itself up to find the angle it needed to hit its target.

He fired several wild shots, then ducked back into the tub. The gun on the tank could hit him at that level.

A shot did hit the side of the tub, but the heavy steel deflected it with a dull thud. He felt it hit, but there was no penetration.

He was ready to declare a stalemate, but then he saw the return of one of the green lasers.

6

The first round impacted the Marine—he yelped—but the following four or five seemed to have missed.

The drone’s tracks came back into the room. They slid on the broken glass and debris as the tank approached the tub. With a final clank of steel on steel, it stopped. From the bottom of the tub, he could see the edge of the thing’s superstructure and the big gun on top, though it couldn’t possibly aim down at him as it was now too close. In a way, it was a classic standoff. He considered shooting the pistol, but there was no obvious point he could hit which would shut the whole thing down like you see in the movies.

“Liam Peters?” A distant metallic female voice called to him.

“Umm.”

One of the small drones hovered in through the broken windows. The force of the air from the fans filled the tub with turbulence. When it was over him, he saw both the black orb and a speaker in the plastic casing around it.

“Mr. Peters?”

“Yes. You got me.” There was no possible way they didn’t know it was him. He had twenty-two tags embedded in him which said as much.

“You’ve been a hard gentleman to find—”

Someone interrupted the woman in the speaker.

“Are you f’ing kidding me? She got out?” the voice said quietly in response. After a pause, she continued.

“I said, you are a hard person to find. I had to move drones all over the city to get to you.”

“Why?”

“Why, huh? Do you remember Agent Duchesne? I’m sure you do. You left him to die on that shipwreck.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s just say this is for him.”

“But he tried to kill me. I didn’t want him to die.”

He didn’t think the truth would help. He was happy to see the man die because he was responsible for infecting Grandma. Then he tried to kill them all in the river. That he died was a bonus, by his reckoning.

“The reasons are unimportant. We all do bad things in the service of our country. He was a big piece of my own future. So, thanks for that, you little shit.” The words were vicious, but the tinny speaker didn’t do them justice. He considered telling her, but his life was on the line. Humor usually backfired on him when the stakes were high.

“Well, aren’t you going to tell me who you are? My money’s on this being that dirtbag’s mom. You sound like an angry mom.”

Dammit, Liam. You said no humor.

“Mom? Are you really that stupid? No, I don’t guess you are. You’ve survived trips back and forth to Cairo, and I’m guessing you’re responsible for walking off with two of our tanks. Not the activities of an innocent child. Who are you with? Tell me that, and I might let you go, for now.”

He took a chance.

“Elsa? Is this Elsa? I have a note for you.”

Silence for a long pause.

“OK, it doesn’t matter. Who has a message for me?”

He didn’t know the who. Only the what. “It said, Dear Elsa. You lose. Then a bomb exploded and blew up the home of Hans Grubmeyer.”

The woman began to cuss but keyed off her microphone before she completed her first word.

She came back with serenity. “It doesn’t matter, Mr. Peters. It gives me great pleasure to tell you your Grandma Marty is now dying with the miserable town of Cairo, Illinois. You left her here, and I finished her off. Her life isn’t worth a tenth of Michael’s, but it's a start. I have a list here with several more of your family members. It will provide a fun diversion from my more pressing duties, like rebuilding the world.”

Liam was crestfallen. He knew about the list but wanted to believe Hayes had been telling the truth when he said that list had been stopped.

His options were to grovel to this tinny-voiced drone or remain defiant until the end.

A violent series of explosions erupted inside the tiny bathroom. He figured the drone was self-destructing or something. It would be a sure way to eliminate him. For twenty seconds the room was a smoky echo chamber of ear-splitting bangs and the sound of bullets impacting heavy metal.

He closed his eyes, not because he was scared, but because he imagined debris dropping in his eyes from all the shrapnel raining on him. The drone bumped into the tub several times but soon stopped altogether. If the voice was still speaking, he couldn’t hear it.

A deep hum and vibration came from outside the house, rattling the glass on the floor. Then a hand touched him.

“Come on, sleeping beauty. Time to run.” It was Brandyweis.

He jumped out and followed. Three other Marines hovered outside the bathroom door, aiming their weapons up and down the hallway.

“Go! Go! Go! We’ll be out in thirty seconds.”

The other end of the hallway was a mangled mess. Where the grenade had gone off, it stripped the paint off the wall and punched holes through them in several places. The glass window at the end was blown out.

The stairwell was once the model of moneyed beauty. The fancy carpet and ornate wooden banister had been ruined as the drone bumped and climbed its way to the upper floor.

All of them were on the ground floor in moments. Brandyweis continued out the front door without stopping. Liam followed.

When he exited the remains of the front door—

Hey, this reminds me of my house!

—he was rewarded with a sight that thrilled him.

The V-22 Osprey landed on the wide avenue between the row of mansions and the large municipal park beyond. It was bouncing lightly as if it had only just landed and wanted to get back off the ground.

“Run!” Someone shouted.

He wasn’t going to wait for an invitation. He crossed the lawn, easily pacing the larger, gear-clad Marines. As he approached, a woman in a small window near the front gave a thumbs up sign and then adjusted a huge gun on her door. The gun barrel began to spin and soon rounds tore into the mansion behind them as she traded fire with multiple drones pushing rounds the opposite way.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

A Gatling gun. The similarity to the destruction of his parents' house was uncanny.

While the gun screamed up front, they ran up the ramp on the rear. It was already going up as he reached the central cargo space. He also noticed people from the park had begun to run toward the plane...but he tried to keep that in perspective. If he successfully found a cure, all those people would be saved. More than could ever make it on one flight out.

Once they realized someone was shooting guns in their direction—the overshots of the drones—the whole procession stopped and dropped.

He was just able to reach a tie-down strap to hold on as the plane cleared the trees.

My God, that was close.

7

When he could take a breath, he appreciated how close he'd come to getting crossed off the list. His luck held, though as the big bird morphed from a helicopter into an airplane, he cussed into the rotor noise: he'd forgotten the handgun back in the tub.

He needed a list to keep track of all the expensive weapons he'd misplaced recently.

The Marines plugged him into the comm system so he could communicate with the Lt. Colonel without shouting. They discussed the assault, Elsa’s role, and what it could mean for their next mission. Liam remained focused on the one thing he could understand from all the new problems of the day.

“I need to find Victoria. We can't leave her.” He wondered if they were flying high above her, or if she was far away, or...dead.

He had to know.

On a whim, he said the first thing that came into his mind. “Hey, sir, do you think that machine will tell me where Victoria is? Is she in the tracking system?”

“I sincerely doubt it. It might know her name and information, but not her locale. She would have had to have been tagged, like you were. And if she was in Forest Park before you, the drones hadn’t made it that far west.”

“But they did make it. You just saw them.”

He thought it was so obvious it didn’t need saying, but he was determined to get them to use the computer to answer for certain.

In minutes, the Marine named Thomas—his name plate said Zinsky—brought the laptop-thing. He punched in a few keys, then took a minute to look at the screen. Liam couldn’t see what he was looking at.

After too long, Brandyweis asked him for a report.

“Well, sir. The kid said she was in Forest Park, but this is showing her several screens away. It shows her near Cairo, Illinois.”

“That’s not possible!”

She promised she wouldn’t leave me.

“Sir, I’ve checked the data. She's definitely there. But it also has her account flagged. You better see this.” He motioned for his superior to come to him.

Brandyweis got up from his seat and bent over to read the computer.

“You're sure about this?”

Liam could hear the colonel talk on the comm system.

Thomas nodded.

Brandyweis turned to him. “Son, this is saying your girlfriend was tagged before the disaster. The notes say she was admitted to a routine exam when she started working at Barnes Hospital. While she was there, this tag was inserted underneath her skin.

His mind spun. Duchesne said they tracked her by her phone. That was an easy lie for him to make. If he knew the tracking was more insidious, it didn’t cost him anything to blame it on the phone. But that would also mean he knew people were being tracked before the sirens got things started.

Would Victoria have any idea?

They can find us both, at any time.

Staying with Marines suddenly seemed the reasonable course of action. “Sir, I’ll follow you to the end of time if you can get me to Victoria in Cairo. If she left this park without telling me, I think she's in a lot of danger. The cure has to wait for this one thing.”

The plane rattled as the colonel stood nearby, studying him. He felt the harsh stare of the man now dictating the next phase of his life, but he met his eyes. There was no weakness when Victoria’s safety was on the line.

He needed the colonel. Desperately.

Chapter 6: Trust Issues

While Liam was asleep in the basement nearby.

Victoria was in the video control room of the Whitaker building on the Washington University campus of St. Louis. She’d just seen herself on a video recording set in her dorm room—someone had been spying on her.

“Vicky,” said a man’s voice behind her.

She was startled, but not afraid. She knew who it was and settled herself so as not to give him power over her.

“Hayes,” she said without emotion as she turned on her heels.

“Oh, I thought I’d surprise you. You look like you expected to find me here.”

“When I saw the elderly on the monitors, I thought of you. I had a feeling we’d see you again. I’m sorry it happened so soon.” Left unsaid was that Hayes had her shot in a previous meeting, though their most recent meeting was complicated—he’d helped her and Liam escape from the Riverside Hotel.

“Believe me; I wish this meet up didn’t need to happen, either. But the situation outside is dire, and it turns out I need your help.”

She turned her hip toward him. “You want to shoot me again? Here you go. I'm still healing, so it will really hurt.”

Hayes shook his head emphatically. “No, no, we have to get past that. I’ve said I was sorry, and I am.”

His contrition seemed genuine, as it did the last time, but she could never fully trust a man who had shot a gun at her, no matter the stakes.

“You need Grandma Marty. That’s why you're here.”

A long stare. “I don’t fault you for doubting me—”

“You need her. Just say it.”

He was a middle-aged man, now dressed in khaki pants and a light blue crisscrossed button-down shirt. He often seemed jovial in their prior encounters. Like he somehow enjoyed the chaos.

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I need her.”

“A ha! Knew it.”

“I need her, but so do you. We all do.”

“Yes, great. Not surprising. But before we get to that, why were you spying on my room? Are you a sick pervert, in addition to being an attempted murder—oh, I’m sorry, we’ve moved beyond that incident,” she said with mock conviction.

Now he started to look like he was off balance. “No, it isn’t like that. I swear.” He pointed to the video screen now frozen on a still image of her old dorm room. “I don't have access to my old, um, tracking tools. That room is the only link I had to find you again. If you hadn’t come back, I might never have figured out where you’d taken Marty.”

“And nothing I did there was of any interest to you, other than finding me?”

“Why? What happened there?” he said with too-obvious curiosity.

She couldn’t tell if he knew, but he’d watched part of the tape because he’d used the name “Vicky” which she yelled out when she thought she was totally alone in the room. That was bad enough. But her real fear was that he’d watched the entire tape.

Earlier in the day she and Liam had gotten involved romantically in her room, after several weeks together out in the wild. They both assumed they had the place to themselves and made good on that time alone. It was nobody’s business what they did, but standing in front of this video screen made something innocent seem tawdry and dirty. After her prior relationship disaster—summed up in that single word "Vicky," the intrusion hurt deeply.

“Just tell me how I can erase this tape. I’ll help you if I decide I agree with what you’re doing.”

“No questions asked?”

“Oh, nuh-uh. It doesn’t work like that. I’m going to ask lots of questions. I happen to know exactly where Grandma Marty is, but I’m going to guard her like my own Nana, for now. If you want to know where she is, the first step you’re going to need to take is to erase this tape.” It was her turn to point to the video screen of her room.

“Deal,” he said with his old charm. He went to fidgeting with the controls while she stood on and watched.

Maybe it was coincidence, and he intended to use the tape just to find her. But here he was in the control room at just the time she arrived, and he’d gotten her to agree to his terms. All he had to do was erase a tape he should never have had in the first place.

She sighed.

Was I just played?

Hayes stepped back. “Here, this button will erase that entire log. It’s been on a continuous feed, so you’ll erase the whole thing. Then I’ll turn it off.”

Studying the image, she tried to guess where the camera had been hidden. Her best guess was that it was in the closet at the back of the room. The view was through one of the slats on the metallic door.

“I’ll be destroying that camera when I get back there.”

He seemed hurt. “No, don’t do that.”

She held her hands on her hips, indignantly.

“I’m serious. Remove it, but don’t ruin it. The factory that made that camera is probably burning somewhere in China. They’ve been hit with this virus, same as us. If you destroy that piece of technology, there will never be another one like it. At least not for a very long time.”

“I thought you said you were working on a cure?”

He laughed quietly. “The last time we met, I believed we were on track to find a cure and save the remaining population. That’s true enough. But today, weeks later, I’m a little less enthusiastic about our ability to save human civilization.”

“Is that your job? Save civilization? Wasn’t it to spread a virus?”

He finally looked serious. “I deserve your scorn. I made the virus that was dropped on those marchers and hell was unleashed, rather than just giving some politician a victory. But I told you before; I’m a changed man now. I’m trying to end this disaster before it wipes mankind and his civilization off the Earth, forever. After everything I’ve seen, the race now is to save the former. The latter is already gone.”

“And so you tracked me down to help with that.”

“Honest. Let me show you what I’ve been doing here.”

He led her out of the control room, and down the steps.

2

“Don’t,” she said quietly.

Hayes had walked up to the double doors of the room where she’d earlier witnessed the zombies walking among the test subjects.

He turned to her while at the door. “Don’t worry; this is a controlled experiment.” She could just make out the smile in the low light. But when he turned back around, a zombie was at the window. Hayes jumped.

“Oh shit!”

He stumbled back a few steps before regaining control.

“They’re never at the door.”

“I might have riled them up,” she offered. They had scared her in much the same way before she left to go upstairs.

“Yeah, well, it’s all good. We’ll just have to look around that one.”

He moved back to the door, and she stayed close, but behind him. She didn’t trust him not to open the door and toss her in. That would make a fun “experiment,” she was sure.

The blood-soaked zombie hovered, but as she got a better look at him—he was dressed in hospital scrubs—she noticed he wore the equivalent of a bridle. A strap wrapped around his head, and a thick piece of leather or another material was wedged tightly into its mouth, so it was prevented from closing its jaw. It couldn’t bite a banana, much less skin.

“When I was here, I saw these zombies walking through those people in the beds. People I knew during the day, today. I watched over one of them, only to find out they were being abused at night by this sick prank.”

He turned back to her. “Prank? This isn’t a prank. Far from it. We’re witnessing the first zombies not to attack humans when they have the chance. Those people in there are alive.”

With a nod to the window, he continued. “Look inside. Those people are fine. It’s the zombies who are different.”

As instructed, she checked it out. The closest zombie was an unwelcome distraction, but its behavior was a far cry from the violence and attacks always associated with them. Still, it was pawing at the door.

But, sure enough, there were other zombies walking the room, and while they seemed to make circuits around the beds of patients, they did not attack them.

“It’s a sick experiment. How are you allowed to do this?”

“I still have my resources. I had the University stand down from guarding this place, so I could be assured I could conduct these tests in private. They give me people suspected of being infected, and I send them back people I know are clean. Everyone wins.”

She peered into the room, wondering if the people lying in the beds would agree with him. Unaccountable testing was a nightmare scenario for an ethical nurse or doctor. Her impulse was to go in there and kill the zombies and release the victims.

“Do you see any patterns?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“Should I?”

“Just watch them.”

She took a few minutes to study them. The zombies on patrol did move around to all parts of the room, but if they were making any patterns, she couldn’t see them. Sometimes the zombies would appear to stop, or make slow, deliberate reversals of direction, but as far as she could deduce, they weren’t doing anything in a pattern.

“I don’t see anything unusual, beyond zombies not attacking them.”

“Hmm. I’m disappointed. You seemed pretty sharp,” he said with mock sadness.

“Just tell me.”

He strode away from the door, heading back up the steps.

“This way, please. Keep up.”

In moments, back in the video room, Hayes keyed in some data and the room below appeared on the screen. The camera was on infrared, so the low light was not a factor.

The images were from a previous time frame. The tell was that the zombie at the door was walking the room, rather than looking for intruders.

“OK, watch again from this camera angle. You should see it.”

Minutes went by as she watched.

She tried to think of something to say that would sound intelligent, but by all appearances, the movements were completely random.

“Nothing?”

She remained silent.

“Let me speed it up.” He pressed some buttons, and the image sped into high gear. With the advantage of speed, the pattern became stunningly obvious.

“They always move to the same spots.”

“Exactly! Though the movements seem to be random, they spend extra time at a select few of the people. And what do you think they have in common? Take your time.”

She watched in awe as the pattern continued to scream at her. It was almost embarrassing that she’d missed it earlier. It was like the zombies hovered at those waypoints and either turned around or lingered just a bit longer than they should. But while pattern screamed at her now, she couldn’t deduce the point of commonality among those particular victims.

Thinking back to her day, she recalled the root cause of why those people were in the room in the first place. Something that might explain everything.

“They're infected?”

After a dramatic delay, Hayes looked at her and gave her the thumbs up sign. He was also transfixed by the pattern. Finally, he pulled himself away and looked at her. “Yes, sorry. You got that one right. High marks for you, after all. We’ve figured out that the docile zombies search out other zombies, but because they’re being affected by the trial vaccine, they seem to get confused when they run into them. That’s the hesitation you see. But, given enough time, say an entire night in a controlled environment, we can tell who has been infected.”

“But what does that prove? We already know who’s infected. Like, almost everyone!”

“Ah, but that’s the part you’re missing, here. Those people are infected with the virus, but they aren’t displaying symptoms. They’re carriers, but they don’t spread the disease in any way we can tell.”

“Typhoid Mary’s.”

“Yes, that’s an apt comparison, but Mary Mallon didn't care if she was infected. She knowingly spread Typhoid despite repeatedly causing death and destruction in her wake. These people have no way of knowing they were infected. We ask all kinds of questions when they were ‘volunteered’ for this quarantine system. We can’t find anything that ties them all together. Nothing that says how they were all infected.”

“Or why.”

“Yes, or why. But you can see our problem, can’t you? I mean humanity’s problem.”

She thought of all the people huddled together in the park, waiting as refugees for the world to recover so they could go back out and rebuild. Some percentage of them could already be infected, and no one in the world could pick them out of a crowd.

Except Hayes. That figures.

3

“So the whole thing with Grandma and the elderly people you killed was just a sideshow so you could walk these zombies among the living and find these carriers?”

“Oh, I wish it were that simple. And please, I didn’t kill them for sport. We were in crisis mode. We still are. No, I stumbled on this while developing the work on Marty’s blood. I injected her blood into a raving feral zombie, and the results are what you see on the screen. It appears to make the zombies docile and harmless. That’s a step in the right direction. With more blood, and more time, I think I could refine this and find the cure itself. But this side effect, this latent infection, troubles me more than words can say. It’s almost like the virus is fighting back. Like it knew I was close to a cure, so it has gone deeper to hide.”

“And the elderly?”

It was his turn to sigh long and loudly. “Those early days were the easy ones, I’m afraid. We had many willing volunteers in that critical age bracket. Men and women lining up to do their duty to find the cure and protect their loved ones. Make a difference, before they passed on. But now...”

He looked at her, remaining uncharacteristically serious. “We have a whole row of advanced medical facilities, and some nitwit administrator kicked out everyone over seventy-five. Sent them home to die. They wanted to focus on those with better chances for survival.”

“Triage,” she said flatly.

“Yes. Exactly. But little did they know the cure could only come from someone over the age of 100. They literally chased off the people who could cure everyone.”

“You have some on this floor. I saw them. Surely you can find more elderly? Grandma Marty isn’t the only one to survive. There have to be hundreds in St. Louis, even now.” She and Liam had looked up the census data for age, and also found one centenarian practically around the corner. Hans Grubmeyer was 105. She held onto that piece of information, for now.

“As I said. The heady early days of gathering those people are gone. We have a few test subjects up here, but they are all spry eighty-year-olds. Anyone left alive today, of suitable age, is hunkered down in bunkers or other defensive strongholds with other survivors. They aren’t likely to come out so they can get involved in virus research.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you killed all your original test subjects?” She knew it was wrong to prod him, but she didn’t want him to forget that she knew what he did.

“You aren’t going to let it go, are you?”

“After you let us go to chase Duchesne, he almost killed us. A couple of times, in fact. But Liam, Grandma, and I were able to escape, and a barge ran him over and killed him—”

“He’s dead?”

“Oh, he’s dead,” she said with glee. The two weren’t friends, as best she could tell, but they knew each other. “And after we left—”

Hayes interrupted her. “Sorry. He’s dead?” he asked again with some skepticism.

“Yes, as a door nail, whatever that means.”

Hayes paced the small room, looking nervous.

“What’s the big deal? He was a real...jerk.”

“It’s not him. I was hoping you two would get away and that he would conduct his usual inept pursuit. If he’s gone, that means...”

“Wait a minute. You sent us out there knowing we’d get caught?”

“Well, I knew you’d stop at nothing to rescue Marty. Plus, I planned to help out a little. And yes, I assumed you’d get caught, but I also knew how resourceful you two kids were—Dutch thought you were beneath him. That’s why I figured he’d fail. I never imagined he'd let himself get killed by you two.”

“We didn’t kill him. He died while trying to kill us.”

“It doesn’t matter. This changes the whole scenario. For you, and—worse—for me.” He stopped pacing and seemed to ponder his next move.

“What’s the big deal? If he’s dead, we’re in the clear. No one can possibly know where we went. You didn’t know where we went, and you still don’t know where Grandma is.”

And I’m less inclined to tell you now.

“The hierarchy of the NIS is very rigid. A lot of it is based on the oldest and best-bred families from around the world. Most of them immigrated here, to America, because of the endless opportunities for money and connections. But those families are all working together, and intermarriage is strictly controlled. The ultimate taboo is marrying outside approved families because that means the offending family member must be convinced to call it off by any means necessary, or the entire family of the outsider must be brought in. And that happens about as often as a sheep marries a fox.”

“So, let me guess. Duchesne had a wife.”

“Oh, it’s worse than that. He had a fiancée.”

4

“Sooo, this bad guy dies while trying to capture us, and his girlfriend is going to come and get revenge? While zombies are killing everyone. Seriously?”

“I know how it sounds, but these people spent their whole lives preparing for a very specific set of events. The woman in question, Ms. Elsa Cantwell, was a fitness champion in Iceland—her home country. She is a master of close quarters combat and has studied police and military reactions to mob violence and chaos—why do you think she did that?”

Victoria could guess, but he was on a roll.

“I’ll tell you. She was preparing herself for the extreme violence of the fall of man.”

He looked at her, seeming to want a response.

“And?” she said with a bit of impatience.

“And, the iron bitch was smitten by that asshole and his cowboy boots. They were both...” Hayes looked around the small room filled with video monitors as if deciding if any were pointed at them. “They were both going to have a prominent place in the new government. Their marriage would have bound their two families during the transitional period.”

“You know, the more you talk, the less I believe you. This sounds more like fairy tale material than real life.”

“Or any number of arranged marriages over the centuries in the monarchies of Europe.”

“Whoa? Are you saying this has been going on that long?”

“No, not at all. I’m saying that what I’m telling you is not that unusual. Powerful people work together. These are some very powerful people.”

Victoria felt the frustration. Here, in front of her, was a medical experiment showing some important keys to unlocking the virus—maybe finding a cure. And the one man who seemed to be at the forefront of the research was distracted by a revenge-seeking Icelandic woman. The world was upside down.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why the hell should I care about Duchesne and his crazy girl? Though I don’t want to help you, specifically, I do want to help my fellow humans in getting a cure worked up. What I see here is an incredible advance toward that end. I want to...” she swallowed hard, emphasizing the pain in the words, “help you.”

“Ahh, my young friend. How I wish that were possible.”

“What? Why? The cure could be right here,” she pointed at the walking zombies.

“It probably is. But I have to leave. I should already be gone.”

“Why? What aren’t you telling me?”

Hayes grabbed a chair, spun it around, then sat on it so he was facing the wrong way. He used the wooden back to support his crossed arms.

“When Janey and I left the Riverside Hotel in our helicopter, we could have gone anywhere. We probably should have gone and found a quiet forest and hunkered down until the end. Instead, we came here. My sources said the hospitals in this area had managed to hold things together, and the research at the University continued throughout the disaster. The community came together, where most others broke apart. Well, you saw what it was like downtown. Total chaos.”

She nodded.

“I had Marty’s blood. I had a responsibility to at least look at it. This was the only place I could go,” he said quietly.

“We figured you were going to Washington, D.C. to give it to the President, or something,” she said with a slight laugh.

“Yeah, I guess I came across that way. But blood wouldn’t have lasted that long. So we flew here. I was lucky that Federal authorities were already working with the locals, and I was able to insert myself into their org chart. Walk in with blood and a lab coat and you’ll be golden,” he said with his usual charm.

He nervously tapped his fingers on his elbows on the back of the chair. “That arrangement lasted all this time. Because I happen to be a real immunologist, and I do know a lot about how this disease was created,” he tapped his nose. “I was able to run this place after a few days. It helped that lots of the medical staff melted away. Pretty much only the foreign educators and grad students stuck around. The administrators running the refugee camp eventually put me in charge of all medical research at the university. And we made great progress. Finally.”

“But?”

If you tell me this is all going to be ruined because of a jilted lover, I’m going to scream.

“I did something bad.”

She pursed her lips with a painful look on her face. Like she’d just watched a figure skater do a Triple Axel and land in the stands.

“Yes, it's true. And you’re going to hate me for this. I couldn’t give them my real name when I came here. Remember, I was part of the NIS organization. They know everything about me, though I may have tinkered with my DNA tracker code,” he giggled. “But I assumed with all the other problems they’ve got going on, it would be a long time before they had a free hand to go searching for me. I helped you guys along by killing Duchesne’s men, and I figured you’d gotten away clean when I saw you coming back across the wreck on the river. I didn’t realize you’d—I didn’t realize he’d died. I might have done things differently.”

“Why? What name did you use?”

“Sam Stevens.”

She’d heard the name before, but she couldn’t place it. Her face said as much.

“You kids have the worst memory. Too many video games.”

“I don’t play—”

“I’m kidding. Geez. That’s the name Liam gave to Duchesne when he was trying to trick him. Dutch told me the story as you guys were coming up into the hotel. While we were...administering to Grandma Marty.”

“Infecting her,” she said, to clarify.

“Well, when we got here I needed a name, and I thought it would be funny to assume a name created by my favorite teen thorn in my side, Liam.”

“I still don’t get it. If it’s a fake name, how would anyone find you? Like, ever?”

Hayes spoke fast. “Victoria, listen. When Liam gave Dutch that fake name, it was associated with a photograph taken on that interchange back in the early days. Back when you refused my assistance, the first time,” he said pointedly. Before she could protest, he held up his hand so he could continue. “The name was associated with the face, and eventually, when they figured out Sam was actually Liam, it became a known alias. Duchesne was last seen with two teens and myself and my wife after a major battle with the Marines and Army units. She’s going to be looking for all of us. And it won’t take her long to plug in the pseudonym and find out that person is doing scientific heavy lifting here at the university. I doubt she’ll be fooled into believing Liam is the scientist,” he said with a laugh.

Victoria tried to piece together the timeline. Keeping track of time was very difficult when the rhythm of the days and weeks was upset so completely. “That was over a week ago. Wouldn’t she be here seeking her revenge, by now?”

“Ah yeah, that’s just it. I was able to keep my identity a secret up until today. I’ve been ‘Doctor Stevens’ to all the people here in this building. Very simple, right? Could be anyone, right?”

She nodded.

“But this afternoon the head cheese came here and wanted me to fill out a W-4!”

He’d been waiting for a different reaction than the blank look she gave him.

“Tax forms. He wanted to make sure I filled out the proper paperwork so the government could pay me. Can you believe that?” He paused, seeing it still wasn’t registering. “So, I filled out the form with the full name. Sam Stevens suddenly existed in the Federal data warehouse. A hit showed up on a running search on a computer and Elsa ran to the nearest helicopter for St. Louis with her strike team.”

“How can you be so sure? I thought the government was supposed to be inept, and everything takes forever? You probably have weeks before they figure it out. You should stay and finish your research.”

“Nope. It was keyed in, and she got it, almost in real time. I know because I know how the NIS operates. They’ll be here.”

“But how can you be sure,” she repeated in almost a whisper.

“Because there is one thing you never want to do when you're working with someone who operates at routine peak efficiency: underestimate them. The second you let your guard down, there they are. Elsa is the kind of woman who does push-ups in her sleep. Running a search of the Federal database for select keywords is probably how she relaxes. You can’t assume she’s anything but top notch.”

So, this is about a jilted lover.

She considered screaming as she promised but heeded Hayes’ advice. Elsa could be outside the door, listening for her.

5

“So what are you going to do?”

“Me? Don’t you mean us? If she’s coming, she’s coming for all of us. I blew it for you two. I admit that, and maybe I’m sorry. But you and Liam are on her radar, too. Probably more than me since you were there when he...died.”

“Why do you keep saying it like that? Oh, I don’t care. How the heck can she possibly know where me and Liam are?”

“Sam Stevens is here. Liam’s alias. She’ll know it isn’t him, but she’ll be looking for him in the area. And Victoria Hennessey, resident of a dorm very close to the building where Douglas Hayes was moonlighting as a researcher. I erased the video of your room—I promise—but how many of these other cameras do you think you’ve been on? Cameras in the hospitals. Have you been in the hospitals?” he asked with recrimination.

“Actually, I’ve been to the top floor. Talked to Mr. Deveraux about work you’d done on the cure.”

He seemed taken aback. “Well. There you go. You’ve hitched yourself to my fate. And when was that?”

“Today. He gave us approval to pull blood from a local man—105-years-old—who lives just across the street from the park. I’m here tonight because Doctor Yu was uncomfortable with your experiments.”

“She’s a good Doc. Now it all makes sense. I thought it was strange how this all went down. You kids show up blabbing to the authorities, probably trying to make yourselves look important, and you pull me into this, in effect destroying all the work we’ve been doing—”

“You said you used the fake name that brought her here. You can’t blame us.”

“So it's a total coincidence you talked to Bos this very day, and then he comes over here collecting information about his research team?”

She looked sheepish.

“That’s what I thought.” He took a deep breath. “OK, I admit I may have had some culpability with this. It doesn’t matter, in the end. She’s coming, and she’s bringing revenge with her. It’s how these people operate. They’re all a little unhinged.”

I know someone that fits that mold. I’m looking right at him…

“And she’s going to find us if we don’t take measures to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He turned very serious. “I know you hate me for what I’ve done. I’ve created a monster with this virus—”

And you shot me. Don’t forget that one!

She felt like rubbing that in his face, but his tone and sudden seriousness wasn’t Hayes at all. He was scared.

“—but I’ve been trying to atone for my mistake by working on the cure. You see that, right?”

He waved his hands at the video screens. The monitor with the zombies moving at fast-forward was looping as if to support his words.

“Liam said you lie about everything. I absolutely trust him. As much as I absolutely don’t trust you. For all I know this is an elaborate plan you’ve set up to capture Grandma again.”

He was going to speak, but she held up her hand, much as he had done moments before. “But. In this instance, I do believe you. It sounds nuts on the face of it, but every NIS person I’ve met has had a streak of crazy in them. Including you.”

“Thanks. I—”

She held up her hand again, more forcefully, she imagined.

“I’m not done! The first thing we need to do is find Liam. He’s supposed to return to Forest Park after he does...a task...for his mother.” She danced around why he was really out of the park. He was getting a tank for the mysterious Hans Grubmeyer. A man who had already been brought up in her conversation with Hayes. A man who seemed to tie them all together. “He’ll be returning to the home of Mr. Grubmeyer.”

“Aged 105?”

“The very same.”

“I have to ask. Who else knows about Liam’s, ahh, task? Is it something that would have been told to others? Over radio, perhaps? Where is he?”

She wasn’t going to tell him where he was. Even torture couldn’t do that—she prayed. But his question about who else knew was a tough one. Hans knew, of course. Some of the Patriot Snowball people knew. Liam’s mom knew. Jason Hawkes knew. In a few moments she had a list of over ten people. It suddenly seemed like a major security hole.

“I think a lot of people know, but I don’t think they would be sloppy with that knowledge.”

Hayes stood up and stretched like he was prepping for a foot race. “Step 1 is to get out of this building. It will be a priority of the strike team. Step 2, we can try to find Liam, but we can’t waste a lot of time. Our own priority should be finding transport out of here. We have to get to Grandma.”

“Ah ha!” she echoed herself, “You are trying to capture her.”

“Yes, you caught me,” he said in monotone. Then, in his regular voice, “You still don’t understand. If I wanted Marty now, I would just ask you. You can see what we’re doing here. Progress is being made, and it doesn’t involve the unfortunate deaths of my early research. You have to see that.”

She stood, unmoved.

“OK. I have a helicopter, which you know. I could have drugged you and put you on the copter and forced you to take me to Grandma—”

She rose to that. Her own experience being forced to do anything was something he couldn’t know.

He must have seen the anger in her eyes. “No, please! I’m trying to make you see there are a million ways this could go down, but I truly want you as my partner. For God’s sake, I don’t need more enemies.”

She fumed internally but didn’t know what to say. He was speaking the truth, even if she hated him for his insinuation.

“I’m staying because I want to help you find Liam. Once you two are together, and calmed down,” he said with a test of mirth, “we can focus on helping your Grandma. She is the most vulnerable of us all because she will stand out wherever she is.”

“And then you want to run tests on her,” she said with the remains of her anger.

“Yes. I’ll be honest about that. But this time I need to take blood, not inject it. I know my word isn’t worth anything to you, but on my honor that’s the truth. I believe she can help us get this cure correct.”

“But we won’t have anywhere to do your research. We can’t come back here, can we?”

“We’ll have to deal with that when we get there. Maybe there’s a research lab where she is?”

He was fishing for her location. Torn whether to divulge the information or not, she felt she wasn’t quite ready to trust him. At the very least she wanted other people around when she told him. That way he couldn’t drug her, or otherwise coerce her to do his bidding. She didn’t think he was lying about what he was telling her. It all added up in an insane way. And that’s what troubled her the most.

You can’t trust him, girl. N-O, no!

Chapter 7: Run, Girl, Run

Hayes stood to go out the door, but paused and turned back to her.

“Before we go, I have to ask. What do you see in that boy?”

Victoria had been prepared to leave, so it was about the last thing she expected. “Uh, what?”

“Liam. It’s cute how you two found each other in the disaster, but you don’t seem to have much in common, you know? Classy girl in a black dress. An unkempt boy chasing after his Great-Grandma.”

The situation came into focus. It was the middle of the night, in a building that had been cleared by Hayes so he could conduct ‘somewhat-illegal’ experiments in peace. If he wanted to take advantage of her, there wasn’t much she could do to stop him, though she would try. He was married—so he said—but he was also NIS, which was becoming synonymous with doing the least likely thing she could imagine.

That’s not gonna happen.

While he stood at the door, she remained by the video controls, searching for a weapon. He seemed to take that as assent to continue speaking.

“It’s just that...well, you’re so pretty...”

The desk had nothing she could use as a weapon. A red stapler. A small pen. Spiral notebooks.

“When Jane and I got married, it was more or less arranged. We had a few great years. Even had a daughter. But in the organization, the biggest factor in marriage is how the two families can benefit each other. My family had extensive inroads in the medical community. Hers was—”

He smiled at her.

“—actually, that’s classified.” He sighed, with a touch of sadness. She couldn’t tell if it was real, or simulated. “The old habits die hard. I would never do anything to hurt her, even if I don’t love her. And her father saved my ass...”

Hayes went on, describing their relationship in more detail than she really cared to know. The takeaway was that he seemed to be putting himself on the market for romance, which was precisely the wrong thing to do, given her own background. More than that, it was the wrong thing to do to any woman in this situation. That he didn’t see that made her angry at how stupid he was.

“...I guess what I’m saying is that I look at you—a bright future in the medical field—and him and his future in, um, zombie slaying, and I don’t see the draw. You know?”

Hayes hadn’t moved from the door. No weapons magically appeared for her. She wasn’t sure she’d need one, but ‘zombie slayer’ Liam would insist she always have one. The irony of no weapons in the security monitoring station didn’t escape her.

“What, exactly, is your point?” she said defensively.

He studied her. She wondered if he was sizing her up, until he looked at the door itself, then back at her. “Oh! No, it isn’t like that.” He held out his arms and waved her to go through the door. “No, this isn’t a proposition. I’m much too old for you,” he laughed.

“Then what is this all about?”

When they were outside the door in the moonlit hallway, he spoke while she moved to the far side of the door. She was free to run if she wanted.

“My point is very simple. You don’t need Liam, right now. He chose to go off and do, whatever you said he was doing, and you have the opportunity to help him and everyone else, here.”

“You want me to abandon him?”

“No, of course not. Just give him a break, like he did to you.”

He was way off. She was the one who chose not to go with him, but she saw where he was going with this.

“Not that it matters, but Liam saved my life. Several times.”

“He got you into those situations,” he interjected.

She laughed. “Did he get me shot by your team? Is that really what you’re saying?” she said, almost daring him to respond. When he said nothing, she went on. “No, now isn’t the time to sit by and do nothing. Liam and his grandma believe each person has to step up and try to save the world. Some people are boarding up the windows of their homes, intending to die in place. Others are running to the North Pole, or wherever they think they’ll find safety. But Liam has chosen to go into danger so he can help everyone. That’s part of why I need him.”

“But you don’t need him right now. We can go off, grab Grandma, and collect him later.”

There was some truth to that. She did voluntarily let him go with his mom. But she needed the time alone to—lay her old life to rest. It had nothing to do with him, other than she needed to exit the Liam roller coaster just long enough to tend to her own affairs. Thinking about him in this context made her grateful how easy he’d made it for her. He didn’t complain when she pretty much insisted she needed to do this by herself. It reinforced every feeling she had for him.

Though Hayes stood nearby, she felt the smile on her face as she recalled their moment behind the big tree after they’d escaped from St. Louis. She thought she’d have to kiss him first, but after she’d pulled him behind the tree—away from the eyes of the police and other refugees—he’d figured out her clever plan and leaned in to kiss her. It was short but so worth it.

When they were done, she whispered a thank you in his ear. He probably thought it was because he’d helped her get out of the city, but it was much larger than that. He’d given her hope to look ahead, finally, after being on the run from her life since that dark night in the Colorado woods. That feeling of escape washed over her once more, and she knew Hayes wouldn’t understand.

“No. You’ve got to trust me on that. There is no way I’d leave this camp without Liam. Case closed.” She folded her arms across her chest. It felt pouty, but her point was made.

Liam, please hurry.

2

“I—” Hayes began. He looked down the hall, past her.

“Wha—”

He shushed her. In the creepy hallway, there was no need to question him. She watched his face. His finger remained over his lips, as if he still saw the object behind her.

It took thirty seconds, then he sprang for the open door of the control room, trying to pull her in. She hesitated to go back in, after all they’d just discussed, but relented.

Hayes whispered. “There’s someone at the far end of the hall.”

“A guard?”

“I sent the guards outside. I wanted to be alone with you.”

She looked at him with a frown.

“No, not like that. I wanted to be able to talk to you without being overheard. The NIS is still a hidden organization. I didn’t want to endanger those men’s lives by getting them involved.”

It seemed reasonable, though that made her more suspicious of the entire chain of events tonight. He was always thinking ahead.

And I’m always thinking behind.

The realization was important, but she tucked it away for another day. If the guards were gone…

“A student perhaps? Out for a moonlight stroll?” she said it to be funny, but it didn’t ring true. Even in the brief time she’d spent with the research students, they’d seemed frightened and pliable. The days of midnight pranks were long gone.

“No. I followed you through the tunnel and locked the gate.”

She didn’t know there even was a gate down there, but it made sense.

“I don’t suppose you told the guards to lock the doors, did you?”

Hayes was at the edge of the door, peeking out. When he came back in, he looked at her with a yes nod. “I needed to make sure you and I had this meeting. The guards were instructed to keep the doors locked, and they wouldn’t have done it any other way. There are zombies in this building, and the safety of the whole camp depends on them staying in here.”

She looked at him like he’d just stepped in dog dirt.

“What? You think I knew this would happen?”

“You locked yourself into a building with zombies. What did you think was going to happen?”

He looked past her.

“The monitors.”

As quietly as he could, he pulled the door shut. It had a stout security deadbolt, which he secured.

“We’ll be safe in here,” he assured her. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

At the security desk, the feeds showed different parts of the building. The only one turned off was the one in her dorm room. He pointed to the screen where the patients were under observation. The zombies that were previously walking around the bedded patients were no longer there. The front door was propped open.

They watched the screens. One of the walking zombies showed up on the stairs. Moving down to the basement. In the strange infrared vision, she could only say it was a woman in a dress.

After a time, a second zombie showed up on the stairs. Moving up to their floor. There was at least one more already on their level, at the end of the hall.

“I hate to ask something so obvious, but when you locked us in here, did you think to bring a gun?”

His eyes told her what she already knew. Despite his hand in the Zombie Apocalypse, he seemed to hate the idea of using guns.

“Do we have a radio, at least? Can we call in the guards?”

“I, uh...”

“You removed the radios, didn't you?” She was getting angry.

“Well, I couldn't have you calling for help before I got a chance to talk to you, alone.”

“Dang it. Now I have to spend my whole night in a tiny room with the one man...”

He waited for her to finish her thought. When she didn't, he tried it himself. “The one man who can save humanity?”

“I was going to say the one man who tried to have me killed, but then I realized there are a lot of men—and women—who wanted me dead, along with everyone else. Why is the NIS so evil?”

Her Christian background searched for a good versus evil angle to things, though it couldn't reconcile Hayes. A man who helped design the plague, and seemed to be the only one working to fix it.

“You'd be surprised, I think, if you met those people. The ones I know, at least. They're bureaucrats, politicians, soldiers. They get up and eat breakfast just like you. You couldn't pick them out of a crowd of average people if you tried. That's what makes them so dangerous.”

“Us. You were supposed to say 'that's what makes us so dangerous,' right?”

“You still think I'm working for them?”

“I don't know who you're working for. This whole—” she waved her arms wildly, trying to signify both the video monitors and the world outside “—scenario you've created tonight. It's insane. Why not just invite me in the light of day and explain what you were doing? All of this—” she gestured with her arms again “—was just stupid and unnecessary. Frankly, it's what I would expect from someone working for a super-secret government agency.”

“Sometimes I wish I could go back to the old ways. Not because it was evil or because I wanted to work on viruses, but because it was safe. There are probably medical teams working in one of the fortresses around the country, making the same discoveries I am. And they're doing it in the comfort of impenetrable walls. By comparison, I'm on the front lines of this disease, risking myself every minute I'm out here.”

“But you're making these great discoveries. Even if your methods are unorthodox, and I'm not saying I agree with them, but even I can't deny this is a huge discovery.”

That seemed to perk him up. “So you'll help me?”

“When we get out, I still want to try to find Liam. Then he and I will decide what to do next. We're a team,” she said with finality.

It's going to be a long night.

3

They spent another half hour studying the monitors, though they were only able to say definitively where two of the released zombies had gone. The woman in the lower level had gone missing.

“I hate to bring this up. We have to get a warning to those guards before they come back in the building. If they unlock the doors, the zombies may jump on them and get free.”

“They're trained to handle that. We just have to wait it out,” Hayes said matter-of-factly.

Deep down, she wanted to listen to him. Just sit back and wait for sunrise, and let the guys with guns handle the trouble. But there was a whole refugee camp behind that thin blue line of guards. If the zombies got past them, it put everyone in danger, including—perhaps—Liam.

“Dang it, Hayes, are you going to make me be the man, here?”

“What? What'd I say?”

“You're planning to let those guards get attacked, just because you don't want to risk yourself?”

He'd been that way back when they escaped from the Arch, but he seemed to have learned nothing since then.

“Never get involved, when you don't have to.”

“But we have to,” she barked. “We have to think of the camp. If just one of those zombies gets into the crowd, what do you think will happen?”

“They have muzzles on, Vicky, don't sweat it.”

“Don't call me that.” Her anger was reaching a high simmer. “Don't ever call me that.”

Hayes looked shocked at her response.

“Look, you...scaredy-cat...we cannot risk it.”

She looked around for the tenth time, searching in vain for anything she could use as a weapon. A small utility shelf yielded a tape measure, some duct tape, and a ten-inch long flat head screwdriver. When she picked it up, it was like she'd struck gold.

“This!”

“What are you going to do with that? Unhinge the doors?” he chuckled.

“I'm going to put those zombies down.”

“Whoa. You're nuts. Just sit in here and we're golden.”

If he felt any shame under her glare, he gave no indication.

“That's how you're gonna play it?” she asked. “Fine. I'll go out and fight them, and you can stay in here and watch TV. All I need to do is get to a window and yell down. It should be easy as cake since we can watch the monitors to avoid the bad guys.”

On paper, it was cake.

The cake is a lie.

She wondered where the thought came from.

Bennie.

A boy from her old high school used the saying all the time in the cafeteria when cake was served. She never cared enough to ask him, but his friends always seemed to laugh at the joke. If she ever saw him again, she would tell him that he was right about that. So much of life was a lie, including the cake.

She hoped he'd argue, but he was soon by the door motioning toward the lock.

“When you go out, I'll lock this door again and watch you on the monitors.”

“And if I need help?”

“I'm sure the guards will hear you. Cake, right?” He laughed a little, which she interpreted as his satisfaction at having caught her in her own saying.

“Sure.” He wasn't going to be of any help.

A quick check of the screens placed the zombies in between the floors, on opposite ends of the hallway. The basement zombie was still missing, but it was last seen in the lowest level. Out of her way.

Without fanfare, she unbolted the door and walked into the hallway. As promised, Hayes locked it behind her. The security bolt was surprisingly loud in the nighttime hallway.

“Just a stroll to a room with a window,” she whispered to herself.

The screwdriver felt tiny in her hand. In moments she found an open doorway in a room with a window. It was set up like a classroom. Desks in neat rows.

She closed the door behind her.

The windows beckoned her.

Maybe this will be cake.

Inwardly she laughed. The whole affair would make a funny story if Bennie survived.

The window slid upward and the warm air of the night blew in her face. A tinge of the smells of thousands of people in the park nearby accompanied the wind, but it was minimal. In the distance, many small fires danced. Cooking whatever was left to eat.

Above, the stars were brilliant. Without the light of the city, it was easy to see the stars as if she were in the wilderness of her home state. She enjoyed the feeling and the memories for a few moments before searching the grounds below for evidence of the guards.

“Hello?” she called down as loud as she dared. “Is anyone there? I need help.”

The paved walkways of the campus led away from the building to other structures nearby, but there weren't any students cavorting about as she would have expected of a university campus of old. It was dead outside.

The university was near the park, but the campfires were hundreds of yards away. She considered screaming—they'd surely hear her.

She jumped as someone beat on the door of the classroom.

“Holy crap!” The cuss word slipped out.

A constant, though quiet, pounding continued as she inched forward. A head danced in the tiny slit window on the right side of the wooden door. She'd been caught.

The screwdriver seemed to cause her hand to become clammy. She moved it to her left hand and wiped the sweat on her jeans. If she was going to use it, she'd put it back in her strong hand. For instance, if the door broke open and a zombie spilled through.

Maybe all of them are out there?

She switched hands again.

The shape continued to move in an agitated fashion as she approached the door. She imagined it getting angrier as she got closer. That forced her to consider hiding behind a desk, out of sight. Maybe it would die down and forget about her.

Onward she walked. She was close enough to see its face.

It wasn't a zombie. Somehow it seemed fitting Hayes would screw up something as simple as walking across a hallway.

She opened the door, and he reached for her.

“Come. Hurry!” he shouted. His voice echoed in the hall.

They returned to the security room. Hayes slammed the door and ran to the screens.

“There! Look! Look!”

“Oh crap,” she said. This time, she intended to use the word.

4

All the people in the research room had been untied and set free. In an almost comical coincidence, a scream echoed in the sealed building. The noise registered on the camera audio and through the doorway behind them.

“You have to stay in here. We'll wait this out,” Hayes repeated himself from earlier.

“Are you crazy? We have to warn people. Save those poor test subjects.”

“No.” Hayes stood up and moved to the door. “We're safe right here.”

Victoria still held the screwdriver, though she felt she was seeing it for the first time. “Hayes. If you try to stop me, we're both going to regret it. I'll fight you to get out there.”

He studied her face. “I don't doubt that for a second.” He moved away from the door but pointed to it. “I'm locking this again. I'll watch on the screens.”

“Really? You're going to let a girl go out there and fight while you stay in this room and hide?”

“You can't guilt trip me, though I don't blame you for trying. I've already told you; I can't die in a senseless battle with the zombies. The safe play is to wait here and get out when help arrives. Then I can continue my research.”

“Who do you think let all those people go?”

“Probably an animal rights group. Some of the students have expressed concerns over the treatment of the test subjects, though they were a tiny minority.”

She felt a passing nudge of guilt. She felt the injustice when she first arrived. It was only later when she understood the need for the experiment that she let it go. And, once she saw the results, it was clear Hayes had done a true service in the drive for a cure.

But that didn't feel like what was happening here. Student activists would want everyone to see them. It was just the way they thought. This was something else. The guards were gone. The zombies were released. Then the people were sent out after them.

She checked the hallway using the monitor. It was still clear, though another scream rose up from below. After taking a deep breath, she moved to the door and held the handle.

“I won't come back for you,” she said with finality.

“I'll be here in the morning.”

Victoria opened the door, then stepped outside. Before she pulled the door shut behind her, she looked at Hayes as he stood watching her. “If I didn't know better, I'd say the NIS has already found you.” The door clanged as it shut.

Dark shapes moved in the moonlight at one end of the hallway.

She ran back to the classroom, quietly closed the door, then found the open window again.

Below, it was still, and quiet. The guards remained elusive.

“Help!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. She cupped her hands to harness her voice and sent it out toward the campers in the park. She continued to scream in other directions, and then waited in silence, hoping for a reply.

Banging started on the door. This time it was heavy and irregular.

Muffled cries of help came from the hallway.

“We saw you! Help us!”

She hesitated halfway back to the door. Hayes had said some of the people were already infected, though it was latent. If she opened the door, Typhoid Mary could walk right through.

But you sat with them all day. If they were infected, you'd have gotten sick.

That had the opposite effect as she would have thought. She did indeed spend the day with them, but if she was sick, she couldn't risk giving them the infection.

But everyone would have been infected in there.

She moved closer, but stopped short.

If everyone was infected in the experiment, no one could leave the building. It would have to be purged. If it prevented the spread to the larger camp, she could accept that.

Her hand was on the door when someone on the outside banged their head on the small window. The glass shattered but didn't blow out. She watched as blood splashed heavily upon the glass. Screams pierced the stillness of the room.

“Open the door. Help us, girl!” one of the shapes called to her. She recoiled in horror that it reminded her of Liam. Would she open the door if it was him?

“I'm so sorry. I can't open the door,” she with grim determination.

“Victoria, is that you?”

“Liam?”

The young man in the darkness could be Liam. She had her hand on the thrown lock, but checked herself.

“Don't let them in! You have to survive,” the Liam-figure insisted.

“I know. I'm trying.”

The voice seemed to come from inside her head. Either the person outside was Liam and he'd just spoken to her, or she was hallucinating from too little sleep.

It could only be the latter.

The people outside became a bloody scrum of hand-to-hand combat. Victims would alternatively plead with her to let them in, or lash at her with the look of bloody hatred. Some ran. Others came. In minutes, there was only hatred on the other side of the door, though it was unclear if it was true hatred or the look of death that mimicked hatred on their faces.

“They're all dead now,” she said to herself.

“I know. You did the right thing,” the Liam-shape said. Except it wasn't alive now.

Definitely. I'm seeing things.

Victoria stepped away from the door.

Did I let them all die?

She prayed for forgiveness.

“Forgive me, Lord, I...couldn't help them.”

While she prayed, the scratching and pounding on the door sped up. They all wanted in.

Hayes, safe in his room, was across the hall from all those zombies. No help was coming from that direction.

She returned to the window.

As before, there was no one outside. Her screams had gone unheeded.

“Help!” Her voice broke. She wasn't used to screaming at the top of her lungs.

The banging on the door was feverish now.

“Defend yourself,” she said.

It took her five minutes, but she tipped over the desks and laid them down end-to-end from one side of the classroom to the door. The zombies would have to break the lock, then push the door and the entire row of desks out of the way. She felt a tiny bit safer once that task was done, but it didn't get her any closer to preventing the escape of all the infected.

Whatever she was going to do, it had to involve the window.

5

The night air blew at her again. This time, it wasn't as welcoming. She figured out the breeze was coming in from the park, which meant her voice was fighting against the wind.

“You have to do this yourself, Victoria.”

The building was made of oversized bricks. She hung outside the window to get a better look at the wall, thinking she could climb down. Her assessment was that it would be futile to try. Maybe a rock climber could give it a try, but she had no experience with such things. A more likely scenario for her was that she'd try, and fall from the third floor.

On the other end of the classroom's row of windows, she saw a metal drain spout.

“Yes!”

The last window opened easily, and she found she could reach the downspout, too. But climbing out the window and holding onto the pipe was still very dangerous.

“Help!” This time, she shouted toward the other buildings on the campus. They were fifty or so yards away, but shouldn't be as affected by the wind. Someone had to hear her.

Minutes ticked by, and still no one came.

“Maybe those buildings have all been infected, ha ha.”

She talked to herself to calm her nerves, but wherever she came up with that—it chilled her to the core.

Wouldn't there be screams?

“What if someone infected everyone in their sleep?” she whispered in awe of the vileness of it.

Back at the window by the downspout, she knew what she had to do.

In moments she had shimmied so she sat on the window sill but faced outside the window. Her feet dangled into the emptiness of the night. Laughter from the park had caught the wind, mocking her.

She could reach the pipe with her arms, but it would take some athleticism to grasp it and not fall.

Another deep breath.

With one quick motion, and without really thinking about it, she jumped to the pipe and gave it a death grip with both arms. It was about ten inches across and felt firm on the side of the building.

A “sproing” sound from above accompanied movement of the drain. It detached from where it came out of the wall near the roof and swayed away from the building.

“Oh God.”

She let herself slip down the tube a few feet. The loose pipe swung out, then flew back against the wall, clanging loudly. After a short drop, she found another bracket. It caught her hands—she cried at the pain as she stopped. It put her between floors two and three.

“OK, steady. You can do this.”

Her feet gripped the rough bricks, and she let herself descend a few more feet. It put her next to the window on floor two. Movement caught her eye in the windows near the spout, and she froze.

A pale face in the dim light bobbed into the center of the closest window, as if sensing she was close by. She assumed the zombie couldn't see her—she couldn't tell if it was a man or woman—because it wasn't trying to break out the glass.

She held herself still, but the pain quickly became unbearable. The pipe wasn't big enough to hug and hold herself, so most of her grip was coming from her hands. She shifted her feet, looking for something where she could dig in her toes to take some of the weight off, but it was useless.

“God, give me the strength.”

The zombie loitered. Another was further down the row of windows.

Her palms started to slip. The anxiety and adrenaline of the moment betrayed her.

First, and inch or two. She fought it.

The zombie was still right there. Searching.

Another inch slid by. Her feet searched in futility, while her hands continued to loosen.

“Go away,” she willed it.

It looked right at her. She closed her eyes, putting all her effort in holding perfectly still. Despite all her prayers and a phenomenal effort, she began to slide. There was no way to stop it. She opened her eyes and was disappointed to see the zombie watch as she slid out of its view.

Banging started on the glass above as she held on as best she could the rest of the way down. She was going fast enough that the next set of brackets caught her by surprise. It was so painful she let go of the pipe and fell the last ten feet to the decorative shrubs surrounding the building. Though she landed on her feet, she collapsed in a heap when she touched down.

She froze on the ground. If she blended in with the foliage, maybe the zombies would lose track of her. If they were at the windows on the first floor, she would be mere feet away. She was unwilling to move so she could look in those windows. Instead, she studied the sky and listened.

More laughter taunted her from the camp, but it was countered by screams from inside the research building. She was certain the zombie she'd seen on floor two was banging away at the glass above her. Would it break the window, then come tumbling down? Would the group on floor three break through the classroom door and do the same? It seemed unlikely, but as Grandma Marty would say, not impossible.

She thought she heard the chirp of continuous machine gun fire from far away.

That's what I need here. A machine gun crew to kill everyone inside the building.

Except for Hayes, right?

She was mostly sure she didn't want him shot.

Well, maybe just a little.

6

“Get up. Run!”

The resolve was there, but doubt, too. Where could she run that would have help? Though she was willing to scream bloody murder while up in the building, now she wondered if it was right to go to the camp and rile everyone up in the middle of the night. She needed somewhere that had soldiers, ready to help. She only knew one place where she was absolutely sure she could find such people.

After a few deep breaths to steady her nerves, she deliberately got up and began to jog directly away from the building. Her desire was to avoid getting too close to the windows so as not to cause zombies to jump out to grab her, but once she was far enough away, she realized she'd done something just as dangerous. She was now visible to every zombie looking out the windows on all three floors.

The tinkle of glass urged her to run faster.

Are they free?

She ran.

Her goal was the outer defense wall. It had to be close, as she’d heard shooting from that direction from time to time since she’d been on campus, but she hadn’t the time or will to go check it out.

Until I need it in the middle of the night!

The Whitaker building was out of sight now, and she rounded the corner of another building when she fell hard to the concrete walkway.

She’d tripped over something, and had skinned up the pads of her palms. But that was the furthest from her mind when she saw two men standing in the darkness nearby.

“Help! Zombies! In the Whitaker research building.”

It felt great to unload the important information, but when she got to her feet she got a better look at the two men. In the darkness, it was hard to make out details, but they each wore some kind of face mask—of a skeleton head. They wore black boots, black pants, and black shirts. Somewhere in the shadows, she sensed the metallic aura of battle rifles.

Instead of running to help, the two men strolled to her. By the time she’d found her feet, she was in a new kind of danger.

“Well, well. Lookie here. She made it out. That’s a first.” The voice came from the taller man.

“Yep. That’s new. What do you think our orders are, now?”

The tall man laughed maliciously. “Have fun?”

Victoria took a step back and tripped—again—on the obstruction on the ground. This time, she got a better look at it.

At him.

One of the security guards had been placed in the shrubs, but his legs stuck out onto the path.

“What...what do you guys want? I need help in the building. The zombies are going to flood the park.”

“Missy, don’t ya think we know that?” short guy laughed as he stood above her. The white skull face stared down at her.

“You guys let them all out. But why?”

Short guy roughly pulled her to her feet. His strength frightened her. He let go, but tall guy was almost next to her. Both men quietly chuckled, like they were in on a joke she didn’t know. She stood with her hands on her hips, hoping it conveyed some kind of defiance. And...

“This is the point where we reveal our grand plan, right T?” the short one said.

“You know it, C. We’re going to spill the beans and then she goes off and reports back to Hayes.”

The tall guy looked at the short guy, like he’d said something off-script, but turned back to Victoria in a moment.

“Or, this is the point where we use the dead of night to have some fun with our date.”

The short man was now directly to her side. The tall guy stood to her front. Her options were nearly gone.

She leaned to begin running, but short guy grabbed her arms from behind and guffawed. “Not gonna happen, girly girl. We didn’t wake up today, you know.”

The tall guy, standing in front of her, growled. He moved so he was inches away from her. “Our orders were to terminate you and your boyfriend inside that freak show. The zombies were supposed to do it for us, nice and neat, but I’m going to enjoy interrogating you.”

Short guy held her upper arms, as if pointing her to the tall guy. When her hands were on her hips, she’d gotten her hand on the screwdriver handle. She’d stuck it down her jeans, but put it through one of her belt loops, so it was convenient to grab.

The man behind let go of one arm and rubbed one of her spaghetti straps off her shoulder while he whispered in her ear. “I’ll interrogate you from back here—”

She didn’t wait for the punchline. The screwdriver came out, and she held it like she would hold a sword by the hilt. Then, with the lower half of her arm, she swung it like a metal pike—aiming for the voice and face of the man hovering near her shoulder. She knew she landed the blow when he let her go. He took the screwdriver out of her hands.

“Ahhhhh!” short guy screamed. Like her a moment before, he tripped over the feet on the ground. His voice was loud and angry, but he was definitely on the ground below her.

She ran in the confusion. With a burst of speed, she dodged tall guy and ran back the way she’d come, putting the corner of the new building between herself and the NIS assassins.

Run, girl, run!

She sprinted along the short end of the building, then turned left to run along the back edge of the same building. She hoped the men were behind her, though she also wondered if she’d gotten the guy good enough that he wouldn’t follow her at all. Put a screwdriver into the face of a zombie, and they’re done for. It should work the same for a living human.

A couple of gunshots rattled the night, from ahead. Her only hope was finding the wall.

Although…

“What if they just kill the guards?” she said to herself as she paced her run.

There were a lot of variables in play. How many were there? Why were they here? Would they follow her into population?

On the last point, she was fairly certain they would. If short guy survived her screwdriver strike, he’d be hungry for revenge. Hayes said they were built that way. The only consolation was that even if they caught her, she’d at least drawn first blood from them. Whatever they were going to do to her tonight, they were never going to let her go.

Her stomach swooned at the thought. The NIS men were there to kill her.

“We see you little girl. Run, run, run, but you can’t hide.”

“And you’re going to wish you hadn’t knifed my associate. He’s pretty pissed,” tall guy said with a hearty laugh. He sounded very close.

There was nothing for her to do, except run for her life.

Chapter 8: Victoria's Secret

Running was one thing Victoria knew she could keep up for a long time, even in the Apocalypse. Her good jogging shoes were comfortable, her pacing felt good, and because outrunning bullets was ridiculous, she continuously made swerves and turns to keep trees, statues, gates, and buildings between herself and her pursuit. She headed for the wall.

“You can’t get away, hot stuff,” a sing-songing man called to her.

To her surprise, a gaggle of students stood in front of one of the dorm buildings. Part of her was desperate to mix in with them and disappear, but she couldn’t trust that the men behind her weren’t watching. If they saw her go in, the presence of some students wouldn’t stop them. They might even kill them all, just because…

None of them had weapons. They stood in the low light of a few lanterns with dreary eyes and colorful pajamas.

She passed them without comment. Only select buildings had electrical power, and none of the courtesy lights on the walkways were functional. If she wasn’t seen, the men might assume she’d gone into the dorm…

She called back once she was past them. “Get back in your dorm, you idiots!”

She rounded a corner of an administration building and felt her stomach muscles clench at the sight of safety. Ahead were the large fires kept up by the men and women on the barricade surrounding the park, the university, and the hospitals. There had to be dozens of people. Surely it was enough to fight off two men, one of whom was wounded?

Most stood on car roofs and rested their weapons on large shipping containers, facing outward.

“Help!” she croaked. Her throat was hoarse.

The butterflies skittered across her tummy. She wasn’t safe, yet.

She picked up her pace. She ran across a large grassy space sitting on a gentle hill—once a pleasant place for students to study in the shade—and onto the street behind the barricade. Now that she could see how it was constructed, she judged she had aimed for the best possible place.

The line of containers and other debris was on the near side of the intersection, giving clear fields of fire out into the night. Someone had designed fifty-five gallon drums so they could be placed on top of the containers and burn brightly, toward the street beyond.

Altogether, it made her feel the people knew what they were doing.

Victoria clapped her hands, hoping to get their attention.

She heard snaps behind her. It reminded her of someone banging two pieces of wood together.

Ahead, a defender stood stiffly, then dropped to the ground.

Then another.

“Help!” she shouted, this time with more force. “You're being shot at!”

It took entirely too long for the people to get it. Another couple people fell, including a woman who she judged to be the closest to her on the wall.

“They’re behind me!” her voice broke at the word me.

She jumped behind a parked car off to the side of the barricade. She had reached her goal but brought trouble with her. The people had been ambushed from behind and were now hidden among the cars of the blockade, just like her.

She heard the zing of bullets on the frame of the vehicle.

“We told you, little girl, you couldn’t get away. The people of this cowbell town can’t help you.” She knew the voice was Tall Guy.

“I owe you one eye, you little bitch. I’m gonna collect from you.”

As emphasis, several more shots pinged off the car she was using as cover.

They know exactly where I am.

Across the street, next to the wall, she saw shapes moving inside an old time gas station building. Several ran out the back door, which she could see from her perspective, but a large hedge blocked it from most everywhere else.

“I’m over here,” she said with a tremble of fear in her voice. If her voice carried, they should hear her, even though she wasn’t yelling. “Help!” she said a little louder.

“Shut your mouth,” a female voice called from a different direction on the barricade.

“There are two men, dressed in black, shooting at you,” she said as loud as she could without screaming. “And they released zombies inside the Whitaker building,” she added with relief. If she died, she’d at least warned them.

She prayed in the flickering light of multiple fires.

Though the situation was dire, she asked herself the type of question Liam often presented to her.

“Can I pray for those two men to die?”

It didn’t feel right, but as much as she wanted to fight the truth of things, she had to admit there was going to be a lot more killing—and death—the longer the Zombie Apocalypse continued. And, if tonight were any indication of the state of the world, it would go on for a long time. Accepting that, prayers for the killing of evil people would become the norm, not the exception.

She tried it on for size.

“God, please help us kill those men,” she whispered in prayer.

That feels completely wrong.

It was true, she wished them dead, but asking God to go around killing people...well, it just didn’t seem appropriate.

She tried to build in nuance. “God, please help us eliminate the threats to your good people.”

“Arg. That can’t be right.”

Secretly, she knew she was distracting herself from the situation she was in. From time to time, a bullet spanked her car. Like they were taunting her. But they also shot at others.

A new noise peaked her interest. A low hum and whirring sound. From above.

She looked for the source, and saw a dark shape up in the sky, barely visible above the blockade. The little black helicopter hung in the air, appearing frozen.

I shouldn’t pray for those men to die. I should pray for their threat to be eliminated.

She could pretend, for a moment, that the goal was to capture them and get them to convert to goodness, but it seemed unlikely. They weren’t soldiers fighting for a lost cause. They were zealots. There could be no negotiation with zealots.

“God, though our side may not be righteous, please give us the strength to dispatch true evil. Please help the good guys.”

It wasn’t perfect, but it felt right.

Would God even deign to get involved in an obscure gun battle on some dark street corner in the middle of the Zombie plague? Probably not. But it made her feel better and gave her strength.

And why is that helicopter coming down?

2

The turbulence of the tar-black drone swept over the nearby fires, tilting them heavily too and fro. Something about it made it seem ominous. As it descended into the firelight, she saw an apparatus on the undercarriage.

When it was about ten feet above her, the long tube swung her way.

“Okie dokie. A gun,” she whispered, not wanting to believe it.

Though she’d just calmed her nerves through prayer, the jittery feeling of nervousness came back at the sight of the drone’s weaponry. It wasn’t being operated by the people on the roadblock.

“Duh, girl.”

She rolled over, then tried to get underneath the car. Her eyes were on that gun the whole time.

The problem was the car. It was a sports car, and sat low to the ground. If she had unlimited time, she might be able to shimmy herself into the tight space, but on this night, under these conditions…

Her legs went under, but the rest of her hung out the back end. She looked like a mechanic trying to get underneath. Or a mechanic that had a car drop on top of her.

She scooted sideways, hoping to go toward the side. It occurred to her that would put her in view of the two shooters.

Die by drone, or by ass—jerks.

She sighed. “I just can’t win.”

“God, forgive me my trespasses...”

She closed her eyes.

Gunshots started nearby. The drone fired its gun, too—very loud because it was so close. She panicked, pulled out her legs, and stood to run. If she were going to die, she wouldn’t do it lying down.

The men over at the gas station fired their rifles at the drone. It fired back.

Shots dinged off the vehicle, and she crouched back down where she’d been. There was so much going on, she didn’t know what she should do.

Run.

Stay.

Hide.

Surrender.

“Ha!”

She wondered who would accept her surrender?

A lull in the gunfire gave her inspiration. It wasn’t suicide, exactly, but it wasn’t going to be pretty.

She jumped up on the back of the sports car, then leapt for the drone. She’d judged it perfectly. She caught hold of the running gear, and the extra weight caused the drone to tilt dangerously. Her momentum carried it so it fell behind her. She stayed with it as long as she could, but let go before it impacted in the turn lane.

The rotor blades jangled loudly for a fraction of a second as they struck, then the whole drone skipped to its other side—her side—where it also banged angrily on the street. It was too much for the fragile thing. The blades sheered off, and the motor sputtered sadly to a stop.

She kicked it, so the gun faced away from the blockade.

More shots echoed in the night from behind her. This time, the reports were loud and burly, not the relatively silent snaps of the assassins. Maybe they’d given up with their weak guns and were now using heavier ones.

She crouched behind the drone, which was now between her and the shooters out in the darkness. It caused her to wonder if the drone was solid enough to protect her from bullets.

It has to be.

“God, thank you for letting me help out.”

She had time to wonder if it was God that gave her the idea to take out the drone? Or was it her, all along? Did it matter? She couldn't decide.

The shooting sounds came from multiple directions now. Either there were more assassins or the blockade people were engaging Tall and Short guys.

“This isn’t over!” Short Guy shouted.

His voice was drowned out by a swarm of gunshots.

Silence followed.

She got close to the drone and was no longer able to move. Her fear was that Short Guy was approaching her—ready to make good on his promise. If she lay perfectly still, maybe he would miss her. Much like she kept still to keep the zombies from being attracted to her.

They’re both extreme evil. Maybe what works for one, works for the other…

Her thoughts turned inward while she waited. Though there had to be living people nearby, no one made a peep. Her imagination ran wild, and pictured a horde of infected coming over the blockade, now that no one was manning it. That would be the ultimate insult to her intentions. She wanted to find these people so they could prevent zombies from getting out of the research building, and here she was making sure zombies broke into the rest of the camp.

It was a full ten minutes before a gravelly man’s voice called out.

“All clear, people. The shooter is dead.”

Only one?

Around her, other defenders popped up from their hiding places. She let herself be the last to stand up. There was no confusion about her role. A man walked right up to her.

“You better have a damned good reason for getting my friends killed.”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

3

In minutes, she explained what she could. There were deadly assassins roaming the darkness, they’d released zombies inside Whitaker, and it was imperative someone get over there and terminate an entire building of them.

They were understandably hesitant. Their numbers were halved on the blockade by just two of the NIS guys—it turned out Short Guy was still out there—and going into the darkness to find more wasn't a high priority for them.

The gravelly-voiced leader introduced himself as “Sparks.” He was a fierce-looking black man clad in military garb. He was a lean six feet tall and moved with the same grace she'd seen in other long-serving military men. A complicated-looking set of goggles balanced on the top of his head.

“So if we don't go in there and clean them up, these super-soldiers—”

“They're with a group called the National Internal Security—NIS.” She wasn't going to keep that a secret anymore. Not after they'd just lost so many men and women.

“These NIS soldiers are here to release the zombies? They want to kill everyone in the camp? Little lady that makes no damned sense.”

“I know. I wouldn't believe it, either. But if you go to the building, it will be obvious what's happening. You have to stop them.”

He looked her up and down. “You have a weapon?”

“I had a screwdriver”

“Against zombies and assassins? You are either very brave or very stupid.”

“Stupid,” she said with an even tone. “I couldn't protect myself, or the camp. I had to run to get you.” She looked around at the survivors of the ambush. “I'm sorry I brought these guys to you. I didn't think they'd be that aggressive.”

Sparks gave her a look she couldn't read.

“I need three of you to come with me. I don't care who, but I need volunteers. I also need two of you to stay here until the morning shift arrives. Tell them to keep their eyes open on both sides of the blockade. Spread the word down the line.”

It didn't take long, and Sparks had his team. Victoria tried to explain where the building was located, but her directions weren't very good. She could walk him back there, but the campus was so big and convoluted…

“It's past the quadrangle. On the left.”

“That's enough. We'll find Whitaker from there. But we're taking a different way.” He pointed into the darkness of the campus. “There are too many places to get jumped if we head straight in. We're going to go south along the blockade—where it's hopefully safer—and then make our way up the south edge of campus and come at the building from the far side. It will take a lot longer, but we can take them by surprise.”

Victoria didn't like the word “longer”, but it did seem reasonable.

Sparks pulled a gun off one of the dead women at the blockade. He spent time at her body—praying perhaps—and returned with her gun. “You know how to shoot?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. We may need your help. Everyone has to fight, tonight.”

She thought of Hayes huddled in the security room, waiting for rescue. Here, Sparks was outfitting her to be on the team that pulls him to safety.

Hayes read me perfectly. I'm going to save him.

“Is there anything else we need to know?” Sparks asked as he looked squarely at Victoria.

“There's a scientist trapped on the third floor. He sent me out to get help.”

“He sent you?”

“He's…complicated.”

At best.

“Anything else?”

She could think of reams of information they probably didn't know, but for this mission, there was only one really important thing they needed to know.

“He was working on a cure to the plague. As best I could tell from my time with him, he was close. But he also found that some of the people in his test group carried the plague, but didn't turn into zombies. They are Typhoid Mary's,” she said expectantly.

Blank looks in the darkness. She glanced up. Dawn was on the air. A faint glow in the eastern sky.

“You can't let anyone out of that building who might be infected.”

“So how do we rescue your boyfriend?”

“He's not my—oh, it doesn't matter, dang it. You have to save the scientist, but you can't free the zombies. There are at least thirty inside, that I know about. If they get out, they'll rip through Forest Park.”

Sparks pulled out a green pack of Newports. He removed one with deliberate care, then placed it in his mouth, but didn't light it.

“If you're lying to me, I'll make sure your life is miserable and short.” His eyes penetrated hers, but she didn't flinch. He was searching for deception, of which she had none.

“Sir, if there are no zombies in that building I'll happily take what's coming to me. But there are. And they're evil. And dangerous. I can't stop them on my own.”

The stare down continued for many moments. She looked at his eyebrows, rather than his eyes, so she could maintain his molten glare. Eventually, he struck an old-school Zippo lighter against his leg, then lit up his cigarette. After he sucked in a deep breath, he held it, then blew it out to his side.

“I think you're telling the truth. The guy we killed was a marksman, I'll give him that. The one that got away is gonna be none too happy we killed his compadre,” he said with humor.

“Terry and Jill, you guys are front. Me and the co-ed are in the middle. T-bone, you got tail gunner.”

“My name is Victoria,” she said a bit too defensively.

“Me and Vee are in the middle. Everyone good?”

She nodded. Others responded in the affirmative.

They walked into the night.

4

By the time they had eyes on the Whitaker Building, dawn was in full bloom. Victoria huddled with Sparks at the edge of a large parking lot, while his team set up. No one had spotted any additional shooters.

“This place is going to be crawling with students, soon. We need to make it happen.”

She didn't doubt him, but she wondered what “it” was going to be. The man had barely said two words to her since they began, so she knew better than to ask him to reveal what he was planning. She wondered if he knew. Now that she saw the building in the light of day, she remembered how big it was. It would be a complicated operation to storm it and kill every zombie inside.

Minutes hurtled by. A student appeared out of nowhere and made it all the way to the front door of the building before anyone noticed her. The girl seemed to try the handle of the door, peer inside, then pause like she didn't know what to do.

“Shouldn't we be up there? Telling people to steer clear?”

Sparks seemed to think on it. Victoria thought he was going to answer, but when she turned to him, he was looking elsewhere.

“I think we need to warn everyone,” she said with finality.

Eventually, the girl moved on. Victoria released the breath she didn't know she was holding, as the brightly-dressed student fell out of view.

Sparks remained noncommittal.

She figured it was another ten minutes before he spoke.

“Ah, there you are,” he said to someone behind her.

Terry and Jill ran up carrying a large blue container between them.

“This thing is so heavy, I thought I was going to bust a nut,” Terry said quietly.

“Me, too,” Jill said with a laugh.

“You guys ready?” Sparks asked them.

They agreed, but Victoria became instantly worried. “Wait a second. You're going to start a fire?”

“You got a problem with that? You said those zombies were a huge threat. These buildings are ancient. We start a little fire in a front room, and the whole thing will burn. I'm sure of it.”

“Um, yeah, that's probably true. But my friend is on the top floor. He won't survive if you burn the place to the ground.”

“Look, Vee, I appreciate you calling this to our attention, but our alternatives are pretty thin. We can either go in shooting, and maybe kill them all, and maybe lose some of us,” he swept his pointer finger to their small group, “or we can light a little fire and enjoy the sight of burning zombies from the comfort of far away.”

“That's what I choose,” said Terry happily.

Victoria smacked her forehead. “I should have done this myself.” She knew it was foolish to say, but it was her first thought.

“Our priority is protecting the camp, not your sissy scientist. And besides,” Sparks continued, “there are men who want to shoot us hiding somewhere nearby. It will take a few seconds to toss the fuel and run. It could take hours to clear a building that size. We could get ambushed at any point along the way. What do you think has better odds for my people?”

The demeanor of the trio around her was enough to dissuade her from continuing her line of reasoning. They were right; she was sad to admit. She wondered if she could go and get other helpers from elsewhere in the camp, but there was no time to be picky.

“Will you give me a few minutes to try to warn him? He's watching on security cameras. I can get a message to him.”

Sparks tossed the butt of a Newport. He had the half-empty pack in his hands to grab another. “Makes no difference to me. Unless I'm missing something, the zombies are good and locked on the inside. As long as no one comes along with a key, we can afford to wait. And watch.”

“I'm going over that way,” she pointed to one of the dorms behind her. “They have a tunnel that goes underneath this parking lot. I know that tunnel is on the cameras.”

“We'll cover you as long as we can,” Sparks added.

“Thanks.” She stood up to go, weapon in hand, but felt she needed to say something more. “I'm, uh, really sorry I got your people shot, sir. But I think saving this one scientist may make up for that. I think he can save us. Save our families.”

Sparks took a long drag. “My family is already dead. But thanks for trying to make things right.”

Victoria turned and ran for the dorm. She couldn't bear the pain of the man.

On the run, she checked her sides as best she could. Short Guy could be anywhere. Behind any derelict car. Behind any tree. Up in any window. She pushed it back and ran forward.

The front doors were unlocked, as expected. A couple of students stood in the foyer, munching on the energy bars they'll all been given. They looked as miserable as she felt. The early light of dawn reminded her of her sleep deprivation.

“Hiya,” she said with all the cheer she could muster. Their eyes were drawn to her rifle, and her earlier sadness morphed into anger. They recoiled at the sight of the gun, as if she were carrying a little demon with her. This far into the disaster she figured it had to be obvious to everyone still alive that guns were their only true salvation.

Or spears, rebar, shovels, or…

She could list a lot of zombie-killing tools, but none were as efficient and safe to the user as the gun.

They'd spent too much time on campus, under the protection of people with guns, to recognize things had changed.

She thought about the incongruity for as long as it took her to go down the stairs to the tunnel system. Only when she was at the bottom did it strike her she had no light source.

5

The tunnels were almost pitch black. Fortunately, planners had anticipated just such an event by placing small opaque windows on the ceiling that let in some of the light from above. The morning was still very young, however, so not much light made it down. It wasn't solid darkness, at least.

The rifle fortified her resolve as she shuffled along the tunnel. She had an irrational fear there were steps ahead of her, though the thought of putting steps in such a confined and dark area almost made her laugh.

In the light of day the tunnels never seemed very long, but now…

She took many minutes to walk the distance she covered in seconds when she ran across the parking lot above her. Various side tunnels joined hers, though her destination was directly ahead. When she thought she'd certainly gotten to the end, she did see the end another twenty or thirty feet ahead of her. The gate, which Hayes had said he locked, was there. But it had been partially opened.

Oh no.

She felt the weight of zombies behind her. Could they have gotten by her in the darkness? Were they in other tunnels? Suddenly, the thought of going on didn't seem so smart.

While she considered what to do, a form came out of a dark corner. She raised the rifle so she had a good bead on it.

But it didn't lunge at her. It appeared lost.

The form was someone she recognized from the experimental group from the day before, and from the video feed tonight. The teen girl wore a darling red sundress. It was a type of clothing unheard of out in the world anymore, so here in the safety of the campus, it got her noticed.

But as she came into focus, her beauty was gone. Her ashen gray skin was terribly mangled on the side of her head and face. Her neck carried the telltale signs of massive trauma—a zombie had recently infected her. And here she was, in the sights of Victoria's rifle, doing nothing.

Her finger hovered on the trigger. She wanted to pull it. She was certain she was going to pull it.

After I see what she does. Then I kill her.

The zombie had to have noticed her. It was getting lighter every minute, and the two girls were now only a handful of feet from each other. The girl in the red dress turned and faced Victoria—she stared at her, or in her direction, for a long minute. She sniffed the air. She cocked her head. It was as if Victoria was invisible.

She paid attention to as many details as she could. The girl had to be something special. A new kind of zombie, as Liam would undoubtedly say. But what would he call her?

After several minutes, the girl turned and walked into the metal gate. It seemed to readjust.

Is she blind?

It would explain everything. A blind zombie would depend on other senses to find food.

But it hadn't done very well using those senses. Victoria had made sounds and had to smell like something. Besides the perfume still lingering on her clothes, she'd been sweating like crazy since she began her escape from the zombies, then from the pair of NIS jerks.

Blind, and deaf?

That seemed closer to the truth.

She chanced moving closer to the zombie. The blood on the girl's neck glistened. As more light filtered down from above, the more ruined the girl appeared. From one side she almost appeared normal—save the grayish skin—and from the other, she was a horror movie. Yet, Victoria could imagine her mostly as a normal girl caught up in the events of the night, the same as her. Only one girl was under restraint, while the other was free to escape the calamity. A blind and deaf person would have had a very rough time in the Zombie Apocalypse…

It sobered her thoughts.

“Do you hear me?” she said before she had time to talk herself out of it.

“Ah,” she said much quieter. “You do hear me.”

The girl turned her way.

She moved sideways as fast as she could, making sure she held tight to her weapon. Her finger was next to the trigger. Ready.

As she feared, the zombie turned to where she moved. It had seen her, after all.

It could both see and hear her, yet didn't attack.

The zombie snapped her jaw—clacking her teeth loudly. She seemed to lose interest in Victoria and turned back toward the gate, and the research building from which she came.

“I don't know what's going on here,” she whispered to herself.

But she knew.

No. That's impossible.

Hayes said as much. Showed it to her on the screen.

No. It can't be. That would mean…

The zombie jumped and barked in a high-pitched chirp. She nearly dropped her gun.

A man came down the steps of the research building firing a rifle over and over into the red dress girl. It only seemed to anger her. She exploded from her standing position and charged the man. Shot after shot went into the girl, some of which exited her back as Victoria watched in stone-like terror.

The man's rifle clicked loudly. He was out of ammo. Instead of reloading on the fly, he continued toward the girl with purpose. That's when he saw Victoria near the gate.

“Just a minute, my dear. I'll be with you.”

It was Short Guy. He had a bandanna over his ruined right eye.

The red dress zombie was perforated, but her head was intact. Zombies can be put down in many different ways, though the head is always a requirement to take it out of action completely. However, that doesn't mean it can magically move and attack even after the rest of its body is destroyed. Her leg appeared shattered, her arms didn't work, and the holes in her backside were soaking the rest of her dress in blood. She barely made it to Short Guy, and it took him one solid crack with his rifle stock to put her down for good.

He kept coming toward her.

“Now it's your turn, you little bitch.”

6

“I don't think so.” She raised her rifle.

He stopped in his tracks. In the dim light, it was hard to read his face. The anger was there but also surprise. With a swallow, he seemed to try a new tact.

“There's going to be a wave of zombies coming down behind me. Then they'll take you to Hell, where you belong.” His empty rifle fell to the floor.

“I don't think you understand who goes to Hell,” she said sadly.

Would Hell be anything like this night?

She forced herself into the moment. Having philosophical debates over her feelings would not help keep her alive. Only the gun in her hand was doing that, now.

“Well, you'd better arrest me so we can both get out of here. They're coming.”

“Why? Why would you let them out?” She took a step back as she spoke. He took a step forward.

“Easy. Rid the world of the filth out there in the camp. A few zombies get loose. Poof. Problem solved,” he laughed.

“What's so funny about that? You can't just go around killing that many people for no reason.”

He looked at her with the same eyes she'd seen in that Colorado forest. “Sweet thighs, you have no idea what's going on, do you? You probably think this is gonna pass. We're all gonna survive and then rebuild. Am I right?” He laughed sarcastically. “We haven't even gotten to the real in-your-face killing, yet.”

She took another step back. She was close to the gate. He continued to slowly move forward. Her gun remained trained on him, but it didn't seem to evoke the same fear she'd have felt had their positions been reversed.

“I can see by your eyes you don't get it. Why would you? This is a rebirth. A renewal. Of mankind.”

“With zombies?” she croaked. Screams echoed in the tunnel. They came from behind Short Guy, up in the building. Distant gunfire cracked up there, too.

“The zombies were God's will. A test. We're passing that test, by the by.”

“Don't move another foot,” she said with her rifle pointed at his chest.

“You think I'm afraid of you?” He wasn't stepping toward her with haste, but he wasn't slowing down. “I eat girls like you for breakfast.”

“I will shoot you.” She knew she would, but she didn't want to. She had another idea in mind for him. But it would take time…

Not sure if it was worth it, she took a chance and fired the gun. She expected a loud bang, but it was only a dainty snap. She wasn't aiming at Short Guy. She only wanted to scare him.

Her sudden action did appear to startle the NIS agent, but not for very long.

She wanted to close the gate on him, but the diversion didn't work. He was only twenty feet from her. They both seemed to size up the situation and came to wildly opposite conclusions.

Short Guy charged her.

Victoria steadied herself, then pulled the trigger several times as fast as she could.

The sound from the gun reminded her of the guns she'd used with Liam, back in the early days. The little pistols they'd used had .22 caliber ammunition, which was easy to carry in big bricks, but required precise aim to do any good against zombies.

Round after round went into Short Guy's chest, but he marched on with a wicked smile on his face.

Is this a BB gun?

He was very close when she lifted the gun and aimed for his head. BB gun or not, it should hurt anyone to get shot in the face.

She got off one final shot before he was on top of her. He yelled loudly as he grasped her and pulled her to the floor. The gun, useless though it was, clattered away loudly in the empty tunnel.

Short Guy was in pain. His voice was labored, and the epitome of angry.

“I'm going to kill you if it's the last thing I do,” he shouted, almost in her ear.

His grip was vise-like. In moments he had her pinned to the ground, though he struggled to right himself on top of her. He seemed to pause to catch his breath while he lay heavily over her chest.

He giggled maniacally.

“Maybe I'll make you pay twice,” he said with a raspy whisper. His hand searched her waist. Its intent was obvious.

She squirmed desperately against him. Afraid of what she would see in his eyes when he finally had her in a helpless position. What that hand signified.

The gun was far away. She'd lost the screwdriver. She'd—

The screwdriver!

Maybe he kept it? It was the sort of thing someone would do if they wanted revenge. And these guys were all about revenge...

Short Guy continued to struggle while lying flat on her chest. She continued to resist, but fought him with her arms...she struck him on his hip and tried to hit his back. She managed to land a terribly weak blow on something solid.

“Enough of this,” he said madly.

Victoria had her head turned away from him, while she struggled to reach for his last weapon. She didn't see the strike coming. Short Guy banged his head against hers, which was a double hit because hers was already on the hard floor.

Her vision blurred as he finally got the energy he needed to push himself up to straddle her properly. Between the pain in her head and the tears welling in her eyes, she could barely see him. He was a specter hovering above her.

Though loathe to admit it, she was dreadfully scared. He'd gained the leverage needed. It was the signal her death was on the way...and whatever else he was going to do to her prior to that. Her strength flagged.

When she met his eyes, she closed hers for a long few seconds to clear them. When she opened them, she screamed in horror.

“What? Never seen a guy with no eyes?” he cackled. “Oh, you're gonna pay. Once for each eye.”

She pushed back with all her remaining strength, grasping at his backside.

Then she let her head fall back to the concrete. She was spent.

“She said you were fighters. You and that doofus and his Grandma. But you're just stupid kids. Stupid f—”

She plunged the screwdriver into Short Guy's left ear with everything she had. When she didn't think it would go in any further, she pushed some more.

Short guy seemed to pause. Almost like he waited to see if that was the best she had. Like he did when he didn't care that she shot him multiple times.

She panicked, and let go of a deep sob.

It's not working!

She wondered if she'd missed his brain and only wounded him. There was no hope of surprising him a second time.

But Short Guy was definitely hurt.

“Oh.” A long pause. “Oh. Oww.”

He fell to her chest again. She might end up dying from being smothered…

He spoke into her armpit. “You don't have a chance, you know. None of you do. If it ain't these zombies, it will be others. We've planned this to the last body, and you have no idea where the zombies are coming from.”

Thinking back to the red dressed zombie, and her strange reaction at their meeting, Victoria had more than enough research in her pocket to respond.

“No, Mr. Short Guy, I know exactly where the zombies are coming from.”

She banged on the screwdriver handle, but there was no reaction from the body. He was gone.

The only good thing the man had done in the short, miserable time she'd known him was to not turn into a zombie. A bullet to the eye and a screwdriver to the ear made sure of that.

When the dead man rose up from her chest, it took her a few seconds to recognize that Hayes had come down from his refuge, after all. He pulled the guy off.

“We have to close this gate. They're about to burn the building,” he said as if he were reading a weather report.

“You saw me on the camera?” she asked dreamily.

“Yep, that's how I knew to come down here.”

That's great, but not why I asked. Not at all.

Chapter 9: Mile 444

Hayes had to help Victoria through the tunnel and out into the sunlight of the morning. The shock of the assault was bad enough, but the realization she may be infected sent her onto psychological thin ice. Her mind raced as her body ached.

I must get out of here. Run away.

The few students she’d seen, plus the men and women at the barricade, were a small glimpse of the total number of survivors within the killing range of a single zombie. Just one was all it would take to wipe everyone off the map. Unable to know for sure if what she’d seen down in the tunnel was the result of her truly being infected, or was simply another strange behavior of the zombie horde, she fell back on her long history of hypochondria. Now that the suggestion was in her head, she was convinced she was infected.

The sting of daylight didn’t brighten her mood.

“You all right? Did you get bitten?” Hayes had released her now that they were outside, and somewhat safe, but he seemed to study the blood over her shirt and pants—likely looking for bites.

She huffed. “I’m fine.” Then, with more grace. “He caught me off guard. I guess I got startled.”

Hayes stood next to her. “Well, you should be scared. That man was part of an NIS hit team, no doubt about it. They all dress like there’s only one color of clothing.” He handed her the black rifle she'd dropped.

She didn’t want to admit it, but Hayes probably saved her life. After getting her to her feet, he helped close and lock the gate in the tunnel. He assured her none of the zombies escaped the building, and in fact all of them were at the front windows of all three floors watching a growing throng of students—and security people from the barricade—as they attempted to start a fire.

They soon watched the action in real time. Sparks and his crew had filled some kind of push cart, and it was burning wildly.

“They’ll torch the whole place. Zombie problem solved,” he said evenly.

“It’ll ruin all your research...”

She was conflicted into silence. On the one hand, the research Hayes had done there was incredible, and could lead to a cure. On the other, clearing the building would be dangerous, and the risk of one of them getting out would only increase if security teams went in looking for trouble.

The NIS had done their job too well.

“The man I killed. The shorter guy. Do you know what he was doing in that lower level before I arrived?”

Surely he wasn’t waiting just for me.

Or, she thought, that was exactly what someone like him would do. He guessed that’s where she would go next. Did he know Hayes was locked up there?

Suddenly the conspiracy launched into an infinite regression. Hayes was in on it. He communicated with Short Guy, and they were working together to bring her back so they could take care of her, and the zombies, in one fell swoop.

Then she remembered that if she was infected—a modern day Typhoid Victoria—she should be put down. Maybe they were trying to do her a favor…

“Hello? You in there?”

Victoria came back. “Oh, I’m—sorry, what?”

“Do you want to watch these guys torch the place, or can we move on?”

The guys from the barricade weren’t that far away.

“I need to go tell them thanks. They saved both our lives.”

“OK. I’ll wait over there,” he pointed to the far end of the parking lot, which was the edge of campus and the beginnings of Forest Park.

He walked off, leaving her alone in the first rays of sunshine coming in through the tall, stately trees of the campus. She tried to gather her wits as she neared Sparks. The smell of burning paper was on the air.

“Hey, there she is!” Sparks said with gusto. “Perfect timing. You were short and sweet. So were we.” He pointed to the cart filled with flames. They’d filled it with books.

“Yeah, I, uh, wanted to tell you I got the man I was looking for. And I—”

She wanted to say she killed the assassin, but it sounded ridiculous. Like she was some kind of counter-terrorist soldier—which was pretty much the furthest thing from the truth.

“—found the guy who shot your people. He was attacked by a zombie.”

Despite the gray lie, the story sounded plausible and served the same purpose, in the end.

“Ah, that’s good news. We’ll burn his body with all the others.”

She pawed the rifle strap over her shoulder, and brought it around to her front. “Do you want this back? I fired it at that hitman, but he laughed when I shot him.”

“No, keep it.” He got close enough to look it over. “That's chambered in .22 caliber.” He laughed. “It looks bad ass, but it won't do much good against Kevlar or the undead. But it's all I can give you.”

She sighed. Short Guy's gun was lying somewhere in the tunnel...though she was pretty sure it was now on the wrong side of the gate.

“Thanks,” she said as she pushed it to her back again.

“I have to go,” she continued. “I need to find my boyfriend, and get my scientist friend another lab,” she pointed to the one they were about to destroy.

“Lots of space on this campus. You’ll have no problem on that score.”

She was sure he was right, though he couldn’t know the NIS was already here looking for Hayes. No matter what building he wanted to use for his research, they’d not let him do it.

Maybe I could do it myself? I could cure myself.

Her spirits sunk at the recollection she’d momentarily forgotten about that. It would be empowering to think she could research the plague and cure herself and everyone else...but this was reality. She was an amateur bedpan changer, not a medical professional. She needed Hayes, just as much as he apparently needed her.

She wondered if he would have ever come out of his security room if she’d not found rescue. In another universe she would have been killed by Short Guy, or red dress girl, then she herself could have ended up killing Hayes at some point inside that building.

Focus on the now, girl. You kept him alive. Go find Liam.

2

Hayes watched her approach.

“You bounce back quick,” he said with a smile.

“So do you. Did you realize you’d have died if I hadn’t found help? Short Guy was about to close the gate on you. I don’t think anyone would have found you if the zombies had gotten out from that building.”

“That short guy, as you call him, probably had more years of training in the art of killing than you've been alive. You're one tough chick, I'll give you that.”

They walked along the road that would take them by the park, the row of mansions, or to the hospitals on the opposite end of Forest Park. She tried to think of the best place to go next, knowing there were people who wanted her dead lurking about.

The park would take her to Doctor Yu.

The hospitals might lead her to someone in charge. Someone who could protect her.

The mansions—Hans' home was there. That's where she figured she'd see Liam if he returned from his task for the old man.

“Liam would freak out if he saw you and me together.”

“Is he the jealous type?” he said with his old egotistical charm.

“No. Well, I don't know. No!” she sputtered. “I'm talking about you being a crazy researcher who shoots little girls and kidnaps grandparents. That guy.”

He let her accusations go.

“He has to know what I'm doing. You have to tell him.”

She looked at him, rising to the challenge.

“He and I spent time in a deep mine not far from here. We saw bodies pulled from caskets—dead bodies—that became animated zombies. Care to comment?”

They walked in silence for a long time. She figured she'd finally cornered him on something important. Her ace card was that she and Liam had gotten a hold of Colonel McMurphy's secret videos showing his discoveries of the place, but that wasn't her secret to reveal. Not to Hayes.

“How did you guys get down there?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, I suppose not.” He laughed in a guarded fashion. “I'm going to take a guess here and say that someone knows you've been down there. Someone in the NIS?”

She searched her memories. They had no encounters with the NIS while in the mine. At least, no one advertised themselves as such. The three men who claimed to be Polar Bears were left behind in the tank room. They knew. Whoever communicated over the computer link knew. The three missing girls knew. Lots of people knew.

“Uh huh. I'll take it by your silence that it wasn't a complete secret.”

Hayes walked to stand under one of the large trees that lined the avenue. He looked around like he was about to share a secret, then spoke in a low voice. “The Mile 444 Project isn't something I was involved in directly, but I knew about it because of its implications for finding a cure. If you could reanimate the dead, imagine what you could do for the sick, right?”

He rubbed his hands like he was cold. “Before the sirens, a discovery was made out in Colorado. Something that suggested the disease circling the planet was more than we were led to believe. We later came to understand it changes to meet the unique characteristics of localities where it spreads. Thus, Chicago zombies have a version of the disease that is very different from those in Colorado. A sick person in Utah is going to be unrecognizable to a zombie in Uganda. It isn't surprising, given local foods, local customs, minerals in the drinking water, and so forth. But what really surprised us is that the disease could affect dead flesh and bones.”

With a nod, his voice became a whisper. “The service men and women they dug up down there were supposed to be used for testing, but once the NIS mission changed from causing the infection to making it as bad as possible, they started to dig up more and more bodies. What they did with them, I have no idea.”

“There are hundreds of them down in that mine.”

“Then you need to stay far away.”

“Oh, I'm never going back down there. Don't you worry.”

With a little less discretion, Hayes spoke louder. “I had nothing to do with all that, though I wish I could get my hands on some of that reanimated blood. It might give us further clues in how the disease is spreading, and how it stays virulent in decaying bodies.”

“Good luck with that,” she said as she began walking once more.

Hayes jogged a few paces to catch up. “You know, I could use your help. I need to find a new lab, but I'll need help when I get there. It's just me, now. You could be a real asset.”

She'd come full circle. Her whole purpose—most of her purpose—of staying behind was to see if she help Doctor Yu and others with the effort to formulate a cure. When they'd arrived, and given Yu and her boss new information about what they'd learned on their journey, she thought for sure that was the beginning of the end. The time when real scientists and doctors got to work to solve the whole thing.

But the truth was much different. The research on the cure was being done by the one man she'd hoped never to see again. To her chagrin, he'd made real discoveries. He'd given everyone a legitimate lead toward a final cure.

She had to trust him to continue that research, in the open. If he made off to a secret base again, he might find the cure, but who knows how he'd use it when the time came to share it with the world. Her trust issues wouldn't let her ignore the possibilities.

“There's a house, just up ahead, where we might find Liam.”

The first step, once again, was to find her partner. She wanted to have multiple eyes on Hayes, and together the two of them could ensure Doctor Cure didn't run off again.

She also admitted the need to stay close to the one man who might be able to cure her own infection.

3

Hayes walked the street with a type of giddiness.

“Why the heck are you so happy?”

“Oh, it feels good to be partnered with someone again. You have no idea—well, you have some idea—what it's like to get on the NIS's bad side.”

“Yeah, they put your whole family on a kill list, isn't that right?” They both knew of the existence of the secret list of Liam's family members. All of whom had been designated as enemies of the state.

“True. But now that world is dead, my own family's chances are about the same as everyone else's. Even though I'm technically a traitor to the cause, the odds of them finding my entire family and terminating them is very low. Some of them are already fighting back.”

Victoria sighed. “I don't understand you people at all. You fight. You connive. You betray.”

“Just like every other group of humans on the planet. For all their bravado and careful planning, they couldn't factor out human nature. Sometimes people do the exact opposite of what you and I think they should. Even on super secret committees and hit teams. But make no mistake. There are true believers. They would sell out their own children to protect the cause.”

“And what is...the cause,” she said dramatically.

“The continuation of mankind, of course.”

“What? No. It can't be that simple. This has to be about power. Money. Something important.”

“All that is part of it. A necessary component. But that isn't why these people spend their lives in pursuit of their goals. It is much simpler. It is the most basic thing in existence. They want their families to go on forever.”

Victoria stopped in the middle of the empty street. “I don't believe you. They're killing everyone on Earth! If their goal was long life, they'd have built hospitals, conducted research, trained doctors and scientists. You know, the stuff that keeps people alive,” she said hotly.

“You're right of course. That was their goal, for many decades. They had a hand in many of the important scientific discoveries of the last fifty years. But this new crisis hit them like a freight train. They had no way to head it off. They—”

He looked around.

“—I was there when all this began. I already told you my role. I helped the President release the plague on those marchers. I thought I was protecting humanity—protecting the institutions which had the most hope of doing exactly what I just said.” He paused.

“But it got out of hand.”

“Yes, the plague was already loose, overseas. My innocuous virus helped spread it across America, much faster than it might have otherwise. But it was always coming. And once the NIS knew this, they enacted their own plans to protect themselves, and their families, at the expense of everyone else. They stripped the treasury. Promoted and demoted the right people. They even tolerated my research until they realized my priorities had changed. I was unwilling to do whatever it took to protect the cause.”

“So you're hated because you want to cure everyone, and not just those they deem important?”

He touched his nose, signifying she was right.

She went back and forth over who the NIS hated more. Her and Liam, or Hayes. She was leaning toward Hayes.

“Up ahead is a house of an old man. He, uh, was someone I drew blood from because of his age. We kind of made a base there, rather than hang out in the park.”

“Or your dorm room,” he said with a knowing smile.

“Or my dorm room, you perv.” She did not return the smile.

“So what's his deal? He like Grandma Marty?”

“He's...interesting.” It was all she could say without revealing the truth.

“Let's go meet him. We can grab Liam and go.”

She wondered where he intended to go, but saved that for later. As they walked up the front path of the big home, she unslung her rifle and tried to look like she knew what she was doing. She thumbed the safety, though it was already in the “hot” position. She hadn't given a thought to safety since she'd taken the rifle.

“The last time we knocked on the door he fired a gun at us,” she said with no humor.

“Maybe I'll wait over here,” he said as he walked off to the side.

Fine.

“Hello? Mr. Grubmeyer? I'm picking up Liam.” She wished it to be true.

She repeated herself at the bottom of the steps to his front stoop.

“Don't shoot,” she called out.

After a few long seconds, she moved a few steps up and repeated herself. In time she was at the door.

The heavy wooden door had a large metal handle, which she assumed was locked. She gave it a tentative push and felt the door open a couple of inches. She let go and froze.

“Mr. Grubmeyer?”

A long pause.

She turned back to Hayes, standing nearby in the yard. “I'm going in. I have to.”

“Knock yourself out. Let me know what you find,” he said with a smile.

I'll be the man. Again.

The door swung in gracefully. As expected, the front room was filled with boxes of supplies. The place looked like a loading dock. Wooden crates were stacked to the ceiling. Every inch of the floor had supplies, leaving very little space in the middle for a couple of chairs. Hallways led to the back of the house and to the stairwell. She knew the place well, but the silence was eerie.

She backed to the front door, swung it all the way open, the looked for Hayes. He'd moved closer and was at the foot of the steps.

“I don't see anyone inside. Will you come in? It's creepy.”

He doesn't have to know I'm scared.

There should be someone from the Patriot Snowball group inside. They'd made an arrangement with Hans—Liam did. They'd go pick up his tanks for him, and he'd provide provisions. A kind of hidden base for them to use this close to Forest Park. It was a match made in Heaven, or so she thought.

Hayes hesitated at the front steps.

“Please?”

The turmoil was visible on his face. Come inside to help the teenage girl, or stay outside where it was safe. She wasn't about to complain that he owed her. She wanted to save that for future use.

He came up the steps with care, and when he reached the front door and saw inside he hesitated.

Victoria looked inside. All she saw were the boxes.

“What is it?”

“Who lives here, did you say?”

“Hans Grubmeyer.”

“How did you find him?” His face was pale.

She tried to arrange the chain of events properly.

“We were looking for old people at the hospital. They said Hans had been released recently and sent back home. We found him here. It was the address listed on his admission paperwork.”

“Where's Liam? Why isn't he here?” Hayes' voice was uncharacteristically emotional.

“He's out. Why does it matter?”

“Because you won't tell me. And the fact you've just walked us into an NIS supply drop doesn't give me much comfort, either.”

Something moved in the shadows of the hallway.

God. Don't let this be the end.

She readied her rifle.

4

Victoria got down on one knee like Liam had shown her. With careful aim, she put several rounds into the face of the military-looking male zombie stumbling out of the hallway. As soon as it hit the light, she knew he wasn't NIS. It was one of the Patriots left behind to keep the place safe until Liam and Lana returned.

Though the bullets were tiny, her aim was true. The zombie slid noisily on the wooden floor and came to a rest a few feet from her.

“I got him,” she turned to tell Hayes, but he had gone.

“You big sissy!”

She removed one of her hands from the gun, noticed it was shaking, and then gripped the frame again.

“Hans?” she said with trepidation.

No reply came from within the house.

“Is it clear?” Hayes asked from somewhere out front.

“Yes. The zombie is dead.”

Victoria poked her head down each of the two hallways but wasn't interested in searching the whole house. For the moment, she was content to know the front room was safe.

Hayes was there when she backed into the front room.

“What are you good for?” she asked with a scalding tone.

He didn't reply.

When she got a look at the zombie, it had something on its face that screamed for her attention. It was a white sheet of paper, and it had been duct taped to the side of the man's face.

“One of us needs to check this out,” she pointed to the sheet with the barrel of her rifle. “It has to be you unless you want to hold the gun.”

“O-OK,” he replied.

After much effort to remove the duct tape without ripping the paper, he had it in his hand. It was a folded sheet of stout paper with fancy wording on the front.

“It's a wedding invitation.”

“Seriously? What does that mean?”

“I told you. These people play to win. This is Elsa's. The invite is for her wedding with one M. Duchesne.”

“What's it doing here?” she asked, though she was starting to get a sense of it.

He stared at it for a long moment, then showed it to her. Someone used a pen to print large block letters near the top of the page. It said: “For Douglas Hayes, wedding crasher.”

“Who's it from?”

“It was Elsa. She knew I'd come here.” His voice remained panicky. “Which is why we have to get out. Now.” He threw down the paper, and backed to the door.

“But what's going on?”

“Don't you see, this is a trap.”

“Help.” The voice came from inside the room, but from behind some of the towers of boxes.

She looked at Hayes. He'd heard the voice, but kept going for the door.

“We have to help.” She didn't know if that was true.

“No, we have to run.”

“Help, please,” came the male voice.

“We hear you,” she said firmly. Then she carefully picked her way to a corner of the room with a small gap in the boxes. The work boots of a man on the floor came into view.

“I'm here. Who are you?” she asked before she stuck her head around.

“I'm shot. I recognized your voice. You are...begins with a V...” the man said weakly.

“Victoria,” she replied.

She peeked around the corner, waiting to get shot. But the man was down. No weapons visible.

“Hayes, I need help,” she called out. To her surprise, he found her in moments. Together they lifted the man from his hiding spot, as that was what it appeared to be, and got him to a chair in the cramped room.

“It was the old man. He shot us. Said he wasn't going to be taken alive.”

“How many were you?” Hayes asked.

“Me and Becker. We walked out back for some fresh air, leaving that old bastard alone. All he did was sleep, anyway. We heard gunshots and ran. When we came back, it was just him and his pop gun standing over the bodies of two men in black uniforms. He looked all proud like he'd just bagged a couple of lions on safari. We thought someone had tried to rob him and were even congratulating him on being such a good shot—and that's when the sonofabitch shot us, too.”

He took a deep breath, appearing to be in pain. He had several bloody spots on his upper chest. “Beck went right down. Hans was a good shot, I'm afraid. I think he figured me for dead because I stumbled into this room and threw myself into the boxes to get away from him. He shouted some nonsense that 'she' wasn't going to kill him. That the assassination attempt would fail.”

“Where is he?”

“No idea.”

“Do you know anything about this,” Victoria picked up the nearby leaflet. The injured man held it while he read the names.

“Elsa,” he said with recognition. “He said this name a couple of times. Didn't know what he meant. Still don't,” he said with finality.

Victoria looked at Hayes, who seemed to wear an “I-told-you-so” face. “Elsa did this. She's sweeping up messes.” He looked at her. “Me. You. This Hans guy. Though I have no idea what he did to cross them.”

“The tanks,” croaked the man.

“What?”

He turned to Hayes. “The old man told the kid about the tanks. Sent him to go get them. He went on about how he shouldn't have done that.”

“Military tanks? He sent him to get a real tank?”

The man nodded as best he could. “These people have hundreds of 'em.”

Hayes pivoted toward her. It was her turn to look sheepish. “Is this true? Liam went off to get tanks? You didn't think that was worth telling me? And who is this guy?” he pointed, “and why was he here in NIS-land with you and oh-so-innocent Liam?”

Victoria felt defensive but was unable to reconcile the need to protect Liam with the need to tell Hayes about Liam's comings and goings, even if her omission resulted in her ongoing disaster of a morning with Hayes.

“I didn't tell you because it's none of your business.”

Hayes' eyes swept the room and seemed to make a realization. He let out a deep breath. “I get it. You don't trust me. But you've just walked us into the head of an important NIS family. Maybe the most senior member in the Midwest. That man sent your boyfriend on some kind of wild goose chase—I assure you whatever tanks he thinks he was getting will not be given to him. He's going to get himself killed. And now Elsa is trying to kill a senior member of the organization... And you walked me right through his front door.”

He ripped the wedding invitation from the hands of the wounded man. “And this! Elsa had this left so I would find it. It won't mean anything to anyone else. She knew I'd show up. She wanted me to find this. She's playing with us,” he said with derision. “So thanks for that, Vicky.”

5

“Hans knew she'd come to get him,” the guy wheezed. “And he was working on a bomb. The man talks to himself,” he gurgled.

Victoria kneeled down to him. “Just rest. We'll figure this out.”

Hayes looked around the room. “I don't see a bomb.”

“Help me up.”

“No. You're shot.”

“Sweetie, I'm dead already. No one is going to fix a wound like this,” he nodded his head to a serious gash on the side of his chest. “But I think I can help you.”

Together, they lifted him to his feet. After he got his bearings, he spoke tiredly. “There. That's the box.”

Victoria and Hayes put him down in the clear part of the room where an open-topped metallic box sat on the lap of one of the NIS corpses. When he examined it, he smiled with satisfaction.

“How did you know this had explosives in it?”

“The long answer involves the military, a chicken, and a million lines of code. The short answer is this box wasn't here before. The old man was puttering around with something, and this has to be it.”

“Will it go off?” she said with reverence. She pulled off her long-sleeved shirt as the exertion of the morning had made it expendable.

“Nah. It has to be wired up. I would have been surprised if the old man could do it.”

“Can you?”

He chuckled. “I'm guessing neither of you can do this.” When they didn't reply, he continued. “So yeah, I can. If that Elsa lady comes through here, she'll get quite the surprise.”

“Well, get to it,” Hayes said with haste. He then pulled Victoria down the hallway, toward the back door. They were next to the porch filled with ammo before he spoke.

“He tried to get things going with this suitcase surprise, but the old man isn't coming back. She'll be out for blood if he took down her people. He's fleeing the scene of the crime.”

“So where will he go?”

“Hard to say. Depends on how much of a planner he was. Who his friends are on the outside. But I don't think an old man has much chance to get very far.”

“Hmm, kind of like Grandma Marty?” she said with a touch of condescension.

Hayes studied her face. “Look. Things are a lot different than even a few weeks ago. The people outside are weaker, and the zombies are stronger. Anyone with the means to avoid the zombies—like the NIS—can prey on the survivors with impunity. She could drop on the roof of this mansion, kill us, and be back to her camp before dinner. She has that kind of reach. It all depends on how much immediate risk the old man poses to her.”

Victoria had a light go on. “Could he pose more risk than a scientific researcher close to finding a cure? Research, you say, she is doing everything she can to destroy?”

“This isn't a flight of fancy. She wants the disease to spread. It has to kill everyone.”

“But then she'd die.” It sounded empty as she spoke it.

“No, I'm sure they have a team working on the cure, too. They control the best scientists in the world. I know that for a fact from my time...uh...”

“Designing the plague in the first place.”

He rubbed the back of his head, signaling what passed for embarrassment for him. As always, he regained his composure in record time.

“It doesn't matter who's at the top of the Elsa Pyramid of Hate. At least two of her men are dead in this house,” he laughed. “She's coming back. Here. If we set this bomb, it may be our only chance to take her out.”

“While he sets up the bomb, can we continue our search for Liam?” She was going to check with Doctor Yu, but if that didn't yield anything she was going right to the administrator. Someone had to be able to find him.

What if he's back in the dorm room?

Hayes responded while she was lost in thought.

“...you know? That's why we have to get out of here.”

“Leave? No! I have to find him.”

If Liam had gone back to her dorm room to wait for her, it would be the ultimate insult to all her running and searching. But she believed what Hayes was saying about Elsa and her team. She could search new places, but going back would be impossible for the time being.

“There are a hundred thousand people out there.” His face signaled a new thought. “I bet you didn't know the food's running out?”

“What? When?”

“A couple of days. They're already cutting back. Do you know what that means?”

“People can survive for a long time without food. I saw it out at Camp Hope.”

“That was a quaint little valley of Kumbaya Boy Scouts. This is a whole city.” He spoke quietly but forcefully. “And that assumes the NIS doesn't airlift a bunch of zombies here to wipe everyone out.”

Her face went slack.

“Oh, it's true. Or, it could happen. These people will stop at nothing to ensure their plans go off without a hitch.”

“They want to survive at our expense?”

“Yes. You are either with them or against them. They entertain no middle ground.”

“We have to warn someone,” she said tiredly.

Hayes laughed. “Yeah, excuse us. There is a super duper secret organization planning to drop zombies on you, or release them from a lab, or put rabid infected dogs into your camp.” He looked at her with a deadly serious expression. “Who would believe us?”

“But you were inside. You know.”

“Victoria, even you don't believe me.”

For once, he spoke the truth.

6

“The old goat has everything. He was prepared for World War III.” They'd learned the man's name was Nick. He lifted a fancy box that fit snugly in both arms. “Including this.”

“What is it?” Hayes asked.

“It's just a box,” he giggled wetly.

Victoria and Hayes shared a look.

“But. But this box will serve nicely to spring our trap.”

He lifted the lid and made a “boom” sound.

Hayes' eyes lit up with understanding. He moved like a dervish as he planned his revenge. For once Victoria could marvel at his efficiency and craftiness without worrying for her own safety.

It took a long thirty minutes to set up the room. They'd found rolls of chicken wire out back, which Hayes explained would be his insurance policy that Elsa couldn't toss the box out the front windows. They strung the wire over the windows, then boarded the front door shut. His goal was to get Elsa in the room, then make it so she would find the box, read the note he was going to leave her, and have a few seconds to appreciate the fact she'd been beaten.

“I wish I could leave a camera here so I could watch her face.”

“You put one in my dorm room, can I get it for you?” she laughed, but only on the outside. She wasn't ever going to forgive him for that intrusion.

“No,” he said without addressing her sarcasm, “When we hear the boom, we'll know we got her.”

“And what if Liam shows up first?”

“I got ya covered,” Hayes said smoothly. He held up a sheet of paper.

“Liam. Meet me in Bosley Deveraux's office. Love, Victoria,” she read aloud.

“We'll nail that to the front door. If Elsa sees it first, it won't matter. She'll still come in. If Liam sees it first, he'll run like a lovesick puppy to Bosley's.”

“I'll nail this to the door,” she said as she grabbed it. “I'll go through the back door.”

She had a bounce in her step as she walked through the fresh morning grass. She stopped under a plum tree and took a deep breath. The air was humid and already warm, but she was out of the view of the refugees in the park and away from Hayes for a short time. It gave her a chance to enjoy the beauty of nature, just for a minute.

Ahead, on the ground, the bright orange plumage of a Robin bounded to and fro as it searched for worms. Life for the bird went on as if nothing of any consequence was happening in the world around it.

“God, if it's your will, please help the people in the park escape the fate of having zombies put in their midst. Protect them from such evil.”

It was an impossible prayer. More of a wish. Could anyone, God included, protect all those people? It wasn't very likely.

Not impossible. Just improbable.

Those were Grandma Marty's words.

“Come back to me, Liam. Hurry.”

The bird flew away as she walked to the front of the house. In moments she had the paper secured to the front door with a couple of nails she'd taken from Hans' supplies.

Looking at her work, and the words Hayes had written, she felt guilty for not writing them herself. Almost as if it were a crime for Hayes to speak for her.

She shook it off as unreasonable. Hayes ran up to her, keeping her thoughts on the moment.

“We have to go. All is set inside.”

“What about Nick?”

After a pause, Hayes shook his head.

“He died?”

“He was bleeding all over the place. There was nothing we could do for him. You saw that.”

She didn't know what she saw. Though the wound was serious…

“I should have tried to help him,” she said with sudden regret. “I was too worried about your revenge plot.”

“Revenge? No, this isn't about revenge. This is about self-preservation. That's the only thing that matters.”

“Spoken like a true NIS adherent,” she said with venom.

“I was NIS, no doubt about it. I did bad things. I don't deny it. But when I saw what the NIS wanted to do after the virus mutated...”

He stepped closer to her.

“Victoria, if you believe just one thing about me, you have to believe I truly want to find the cure. Not for the NIS. Not even for myself—though I hope there's enough for me—but for those people over there,” he pointed to the refugees in the huge park. “My self-preservation is theirs as well.”

Her emotion rushed out like a deflating balloon. It was hard to maintain constant anger and doubt at someone she had to work with. “Let's just go. I want to find Liam.”

What if I infect him?

Already emotionally spent, it went to the back burner.

“We'll try Bosley's office, just like the note says,” he pointed to the door.

“You think that's where he'd be?” She was sure Liam wouldn't go there.

“No, not at all. We're going there to let them know the threats they're facing, and we'll tell them Liam is going to be instrumental in helping stave off the attacks from the outside.”

“We're going to lie?”

He looked taken aback. “Lie? Heavens no! We're going to save your boyfriend's life.”

She looked at him with troubled eyes but allowed his words to sooth her.

It's a very small lie. And, with Liam here, we really can save more lives.

She said nothing on the walk along the mile-long empty avenue. The mature trees lining each side provided shade and a pleasant atmosphere. She could almost ignore the edges of the large crowd in the park on her right.

When they entered the hospital, she still wasn't sure she was doing the right thing.

What if I infect everyone?

Chapter 10: Freefall

They reached Bosley Deveraux's office at the top of the hospital tower without incident. The two guards at the elevator patted them down, even though Victoria left her rifle at the gun check on the main floor. The patting was something new. Last time she'd been on the floor, they weren't bothered. Of course, that time she was with Doctor Yu, instead of Douglas Hayes.

Unless they just want to touch me.

Worried that was true, she suffered the indignity in silence, then moved away as soon as they gave the OK. She never made eye contact with them but sensed the stares as she walked away. She was glad to make it to the camp administrator's office.

Deveraux didn't get up from his desk. “Damn you, Doctor Stevens. What are you doing to my research facilities?”

As on her last visit, the administrator sat looking at a screen with a video feed. It had been playing footage from the convoy now heading to St. Louis, but she couldn't be sure that was what he was watching this time.

“Good to see you, too, Bosley,” Hayes said with his best attempt at charm. “And since when do I get patted down?” He acted offended, though he was faking it—just like his false name.

“Since you started setting fires!” He banged on the desk.

“Me? No, you've got me all wrong. She and I,” he pointed to Victoria, “were trapped in the security room when the zombies broke containment.”

“And what were you two doing in the security room, if I may ask?”

Victoria's face burned. The thought of doing anything improper with Hayes was repulsive. She was prepared for Hayes to run with that fiction, but he surprised her.

“She was accosted in the tunnel on the way to her dorm. I saw her on the cameras and guided her in. She was instrumental in getting us to safety, and alerting the authorities on the defense wall. They came and got us, and cleared out the infected. Sadly, the only way to do that and still keep their men safe was to burn the insides of the building.” He spoke as if he were reading a prepared statement. To Victoria, it came across as the absolute truth. He'd only left out certain details…

Deveraux looked at her for a long moment. Just long enough to make her uncomfortable. “I guess I owe you thanks. Doctor Stevens has made many advancements in the search for the cure in that building, and losing all that work would be tragic, though losing him would be a global loss.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Hayes responded with a smile. “But, Bos, we have a new problem.”

The man slumped back in his high-backed swivel chair. “Just what I need. More problems.” He nodded to the screen but didn't turn up the sound. “The convoy is still stuck in West Virginia. They say the bridges have been stressed by all the heavy equipment passing over them. The repairs are taking a lot of time, and the whole effort seems in danger of failure.”

Hayes took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and put his feet on the edge of the desk like he owned the place. “You only see what they want you to see. I guarantee they aren't holding things up because of some rusty bridges.”

“Then what?”

“Oh, probably too many infected. Or too many people falling prey to the zombies. Or, worst of all, maybe the convoy is already here.”

The two men stared at each other. Victoria couldn't see Hayes' face, but Bosley's eyes were rigid. His eventual response was measured. “And why would that be the worst of all, doctor?”

Hayes looked up to Victoria with a smile, then turned back to the desk. “Because, sir, it would mean our time in this dangerous hellhole called the Zombie Apocalypse might be coming to an end.” Victoria could hear the smile. Deveraux did not return it.

“I don't get you. You do such good work in the lab, but you are a complete jagoff everywhere else.”

“See! That right there is why I need to get up here more. The socializing.”

Victoria was unsure how to feel. Hayes was always a jerk, that much was true, but Deveraux more or less threw her and Liam out the last time, after they had suggested the zombie disease was much worse than anyone knew. A fact he seemed determined to ignore on both visits.

“Why did you really come here, doctor. I'm a very busy man.”

“I can see that. Watching TV and drinking Scotch can take a lot out of a man.” Hayes reached to the desk and lifted a napkin which had been placed over a clear glass of a golden liquid.

“Screw you. Do you have any idea what I have to deal with here? Lists of dead. Threats of infection. Diminishing medical supplies.”

“Don't forget, you're almost out of food,” Hayes prodded.

Deveraux actually rolled his eyes. “Yes, that, too. And now I have my most hopeful line of research go up in smoke because you and this slut wanted to play sneak and slide in a private room.”

“Hey!” Victoria shouted, though Hayes was already speaking.

“I told you, there's nothing going on like that. In fact, we came to ask about her boyfriend, Liam.”

“You met him a couple days ago, with Doctor Yu,” she said with accusation.

Deveraux reached for his glass, then downed the remaining two fingers of Scotch. He set the glass back on his desk with great care, apparently thinking as he did so.

“Liam won't be coming back, I'm afraid to say.” He clicked some letters on his keyboard and the computer monitor flipped from images of the convoy to a still image of an old man walking along the main avenue outside the hospital.

“Hans Grubmeyer,” Victoria let slip.

“Yes. After you left my office the last time, you asked one of my nurses for some proprietary information about elderly people in the area. She explained where you'd gone. From there it was easy to piece everything together. We watched all the people who went in. All the people who went out. Our counter-surveillance operation is small but efficient. We watched Liam and his friends leave the compound, and we know he hasn't come back in. None of them have. They're dead.”

Hayes was quiet. She watched him, waiting for the snarky response.

“A shame about the research, though. Your appearance in camp really helped take us to the next level.” Deveraux looked at Hayes with a frown. “If it were up to me...”

“Doctor Stevens? What's going on here?”

He stood up, stretching like he was bored, then turned to her. “This is the end of the line for you, I'm afraid.”

“What? No! We have to save Liam. Together. Like you promised.”

But it was obvious. She'd been led into a trap. Hayes had betrayed her.

2

“Um, no. That's not what's happening at all,” Deveraux said with a pleasant voice. “You are being arrested for destruction of government research. This is the end for both of you.”

Hayes looked hurt, but she felt a tiny bit of relief when she saw his expression.

“Aw man, I thought you and I had an understanding? I bring you terrorists like Victoria, and you let me do my research in peace.” He winked at her.

“We're way beyond agreements, Douglas Reginald Hayes. She said you were the most dangerous person within a hundred miles of here—”

“Only a hundred?”

“—and you walked right in my office.”

“She'll be so pleased.”

“Yes. She will,” Deveraux said with growing anger.

“Will someone please tell me what the...heck...is going on here?”

Hayes responded with mock seriousness. “Deveraux is doing the bidding of one Ms. Elsa Cantwell.”

“Elsa? From the invitation? She controls him?”

“No one controls me, Missy. But Homeland Security is in charge of everything you see out my windows. She's the only one who can get me the supplies I need to keep my people alive.”

Victoria spoke with dawning understanding. “He doesn't know?”

Hayes responded. “No, he still thinks there's a Homeland Security.”

That peaked Deveraux's interest. “What are you saying? Of course there's still a Homeland Security.” He pointed to the screen, though it still showed Hans. “The convoy is being guided by Homeland. The video feeds are Homeland. My food comes from Homeland.”

Hayes laughed with scorn. “You must be dumber than I thought. Elsa is the one who burned the research. Elsa is the one who sent a team to kill Hans in his home. She's trying to kill me, Victoria, and, in time, she'll kill you and everyone in your precious camp. You can't sit up here and run out the clock on this disaster.”

The camp director didn't try to hide his actions. He reached for a bottle he'd apparently set on the floor under his desk, then poured himself a full tumbler. With a deep sniff, he tipped it back and downed the whole thing in several big gulps.

“You better watch that bad habit,” Hayes said to annoy him. Which it clearly did.

“Your mouth is a bad habit,” he said lamely.

“So where is Hans?” Victoria queried. If they knew where the old man had gone, it might give her a clue to where Liam had gone.

“We don't know. He was last seen walking the streets, but he disappeared from his tail. No one took that old man seriously as an escape threat.”

Hayes laughed.

“Yeah, it's all fun and games, but you are under arrest, and when Elsa gets here we'll see if you're still laughing.”

“When will she be here,” she said innocently.

“When she's here. I don't make the timeline; I just run the biggest damned camp of refugees in the Midwest.”

“She's playing you,” Hayes said with his normal charm.

“Shut up. Just shut up!” Deveraux was sweating profusely. The hospital still had nominal power, but the air conditioning had been set extremely high. His condition—including glassy eyes and slurring speech—had nothing to do with heat.

“Where is she, Bos, old friend?”

“Old friend? We've only known each other for two weeks,” he laughed weakly. “And you lied to me the whole time.”

“I meant that one day when we look back on this, we'd be old friends,” he said with a smooth cadence. “One day we'll look back on the time when we figured out that things weren't what they seemed.”

“Ha! Her young beau came in here spouting about dead bodies being reanimated by this virus. Some kind of supernatural mumbo jumbo. Your research says people can carry the virus and not appear to be sick at all—”

Victoria gulped, involuntarily.

“—and suddenly a 105-year-old walks out of our safety. None of this makes any sense.” He looked at his empty glass. “And this convoy. I've been watching it for days. Praying it gets here before everything goes to shit.” He pointed out the window. “You haven't been down there. People are losing patience with us. With me. They want answers. They want to go home. They want food. They want. They want. They f'ing want!”

Deveraux took his glass and threw it at the wall. In a stroke of irony, it hit a wooden picture frame for some artsy tapestry and plopped gently onto a nearby pile of papers. It was unbroken.

“God, I can't even get mad properly.”

“Sir, you have to let us go. I only want to find my boyfriend, and get out of here.” She didn't want to speak for Hayes. She didn't really know, for certain, what his intentions were.

The man laughed wildly. “See! Who the hell wants to leave the safety of this camp? We are the only safe place left. And you want to leave. Why? Help is almost here.”

She felt sorry for him. He seemed pitiful with his drinking and impotent in his anger, but he seemed genuine in his hope to keep his place running.

Hayes remained quiet.

“Mr. Deveraux. I've seen some incredible things outside of your camp. I've seen dead men walk. I've watched hordes of undead sweep over the healthy. I've climbed out of a grave. This man,” she pointed to Hayes, “was once my worst enemy. He shot me, in fact. But I believe him that Elsa is not with Homeland Security. She's with another organization.” She looked at Hayes, but he wasn't stopping her. “They're called the National Internal Security. I met one of their agents a while ago. He said they caused the plague, and I believe their goal is to kill us all. That's why I'm asking you, please, to let us go. We'll get out of your hair, and you'll never hear from us again.”

A lie?

“She said you were dangerous,” he pointed to Hayes, “but I think you are far more dangerous, young lady.”

He keyed his phone. “Melanie, I'm sending my two guests back down. Please give them their weapons and direct them to the gate.”

“Shall I tell your other party to wait, before going up?”

Deveraux held the button, evidently processing the possibilities with his alcohol-fueled brain.

3

Hayes didn't wait. “Come on.” He grabbed her by the arm.

“I'm coming.”

She expected Deveraux to say something, but he stayed silent at his desk. She gave him one last look before she was out the door, and he never stopped staring at the phone on his desk.

Outside the office, they saw the two security men in front of the elevators. They were looking outside the windows, but when the elevator dinged they turned to face the visitors.

“I guess she let them come up,” he whispered. “Follow me.”

The sign for the stairs was nearby, but they had to walk toward the elevators for a few yards. One of the men spotted them but returned his gaze to the elevator in front of him.

“They saw us,” she whispered.

Hayes opened the fire door as quietly as he could. He proceeded through and held the door for her. The moment before she walked through, she caught sight of a person coming out of the elevator. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like a woman.

The door snapped shut while they stood just inside. Hayes started up the steps.

“Shouldn't we go down?” she asked incredulously.

“Trust me. We have to go up.” He didn't wait for her.

Left with two bad options, she decided to follow. Not because she trusted him, but…

Why am I following him?

In a few short moments, they were at the top door. She didn't have time to answer her own question.

“Hayes!” a man called from below them. “We know it's you.”

Hayes froze against the door, then put his head against it. Victoria began to say something, and he raised his finger for her to wait one moment. He'd shifted, so his ear was against the solid metal.

“I'm armed,” he shouted while apparently hugging the door.

Victoria leaned over the side, but Hayes yanked her back. In the instant she could see below, a man had shot up at her from a floor down. She looked at the ceiling and saw the impact.

“Whoa!” was all she could say.

“I swear to God, I'm going to shoot anyone who comes up this stairwell,” Hayes shouted.

Victoria looked at him like he was crazy.

“Trust me. Do as I say,” he said quietly.

“Come on now. We don't want no trouble.” Laughter from below. The footfalls on the concrete stairs were quiet but distinct. They were on the way up.

She mouthed “What are you doing?” while she hunched her shoulders.

He smiled in return.

Seconds rattled by like a freight train bearing down on a blown bridge. She saw nothing that would make any kind of weapon. The only thing besides the door was an inset bulb in the ceiling. Things were moving too fast to a bad end.

“Get down,” Hayes whispered. He showed her by laying flat on his stomach. “Stay down, no matter what.”

“This is your plan? Lie down and die?” She briefly considered jumping down the stairs and attacking the two men, but she knew where that would end.

“Trust me!”

She did as instructed, resigned to whatever fate Hayes had steered her into.

Liam wouldn't have let us get caught so easily.

He had a knack for getting them out of tight situations. She left him for one day, and she'd been snared in several traps. Hayes would have her killed, after all.

“Well, well. She said you were the most dangerous man alive. But I think she made a mistake.” Victoria kept her head down, as if to ignore what unfolded around her.

Another man laughed. Their feet clomped on the final steps. She felt the shift in the air. They were on the landing with her and Hayes.

“Elsa is right about a lot of things, but I'm not sure she'd be fired up by your incompetence.”

A malicious laugh. “I think she'll be just fine when I show her your body. You just gonna lay there? After all the trouble we went through to find you?”

“You knew I was here. How hard could it have been? She could have had me fired.”

“Hmm. I guess that's true. She's been, eh, busy. I guess she just had some free time for you today.”

“Maybe. You know what they say, though?”

“No, what?”

“Fire the gun. Fire it!”

A brief laugh. “All right, if you ins—”

The stairwell became a deafening shooting gallery of gunfire. A combination of metallic clinks, ricochets off the cement, and the wet impacts of bullets on flesh intermingled in Victoria's ears. It only lasted for a few seconds, and when it stopped the only sounds remaining were those of bodies sliding down the steps. When they descended to the next landing, it became unnaturally silent.

“Well, that worked out. Thank you, overwatch.”

“Who?”

On his knees, Hayes tapped his ear and turned to her. He wore a tiny ear piece. Whoever was on the other end had helped him. The disturbing thing was that he had to have prepared for this. Who could have anticipated he'd need help in this spot?

“How?”

He shushed her. “I plan ahead,” he said quietly.

On her knees, she got a look at the door. It had been perforated by gunfire from the other side.

Hayes was up and pushing through to the outside before she could ask another of her many questions. She caught sight of several floating drones.

When she followed him through, it took great effort to follow him onto the rooftop. Three big, black drones hovered in formation about twenty feet from the door. All of them had guns which hung from the lower portion of their frames. Those guns still pointed at her and Hayes.

“Uhh, Hayes?”

“Don't sweat it. These are mine.”

“One of these attacked me. Are you sure?” She didn't plan it consciously, but she had placed herself behind Hayes, relative to the drones.

“I can see you don't trust me. We'd both be dead if these hadn't come along when they did. They're friendly.”

“Yeah, real friendly.” Then, she made an association. “You were telling them to fire, weren't you.”

“Smart girl. I was wondering if my feed was working,” he said with mock anger, she supposed he was talking to whoever was listening to him.

“So what do we do now?” They still didn't have any weapons… “Hey, we can grab their rifles!”

She turned to go back.

“No, there will be more of them in the stairwell. These things will keep us safe until our white knight arrives.”

She made it to the door before admitting he was right. If she went down the steps, she'd be outside the protection of the drones. As much as she wanted a gun, she would have to trust he knew what he was talking about.

From twenty floors up, she could see for miles in the clear air of the early morning. Despite the whir of the mechanized copters nearby, she could hear the drone of a large plane somewhere above. Another aircraft—possibly a helicopter—whined out there, too.

When the drone fired a shot into the stairwell, her heart ricocheted off both lungs.

4

She'd crouched down on the hard asphalt surface when the drone fired its gun, which turned out to be the right thing to do. Hayes was down with her, though he was faced the opposite way, still looking at the sky.

“What are we doing here?” she shouted, afraid another shot was coming.

“I told you. Rescue.”

The three drones hovered nearby.

“Those things rescued us, but what now?”

Hayes spun around while crouched so he faced her. He wore a smile. His thatched shirt was damp with sweat.

“We're going to jump.”

Her expression was blank. She'd known him long enough to know he could seldom be trusted to tell the truth. Especially under stress.

“That way.” He pointed to the next building, the top of which was just visible at about the same level as their rooftop. “Follow me.”

They ran from the drones and made it to the gap between the two buildings. It was about ten feet wide, though the roof edge was a few feet lower than theirs. The surface was covered in small brown pebbles.

“There. That's where we're going.” He pointed to the far side of the next building, beyond a large bank of idle air conditioner fans. A series of steps led up to a flat platform big enough for a helicopter to land. There was a nearby pole with an orange sock-flag hanging limply from the top. The blinking lights were harder to see in the bright morning sun, but there was no doubt it was a rooftop landing pad.

She demanded evidence as such because of what she had to do to get there. They were twenty floors up, and the narrow space between the buildings below was filled with overflowing garbage dumpsters. The trash had not been collected in weeks.

“I could land in the trash,” she mused to herself.

“No, you'd die,” Hayes responded with finality.

She looked at him anew. “We have to jump this? Are you sure this is the only way?”

“Yep. I know it doesn't look it, but I've got this planned out.”

“How?”

He tapped his ear again.

While they conversed a small black drone floated up from the gap. “Hello, Douglas. Nice to see you,” a mechanical-sounding woman's voice belted out.

“I wish I could say the same. Sorry about your men.”

“Ha. Spare me the false sentiments. I've got prisons full of good help. You're not sorry about anything you've done in your whole life.”

“Would you believe me if I said I was sorry that Dutch died?”

The drone hovered. The thought process of the person on the other end was conveyed by the machine.

“I'm going to get payback for what you and your friends took from me,” she said slowly and with clear enunciation.

“I didn't kill him, though. You want the girl and her boyfriend,” he pleaded.

Victoria found it distasteful, but very Hayes.

“You let them go!” she screamed. Then, with a burning anger, she spoke quickly. “Don't think for a second you can get out of this. You let those kids go, then your dear wifey shot his team, leaving my guy outnumbered on that river crossing. Those kids were the bullet, but you pulled the trigger. It's how you do everything.”

Hayes looked at Victoria. “Well, I had to try, right?” He still maintained his smile, but he was using his hands to wave her backward.

She took a few steps back, which put some separation between herself, the drone, and Hayes.

This is the part where he shoots me like a bullet…

Her fears were confirmed when he motioned for her to jump the gap. He used his hands to signify a running person making a very obvious leap over something. As he did so, he moved the opposite direction on the roof, so they were both on opposite sides of the drone. She mimicked him by moving many yards beyond the edge. There was a small lip they'd have to clear as part of their effort.

“Go!”

Victoria froze. Hayes ran for it. With surprising speed he jumped the lip of the building, flew across the gap, then landed in a heap on the far side. She could just see his upper body because of her positioning.

It was her turn. But before she could move one foot, a spinning drone blade whirred up from below where Hayes had just jumped. The white carapace had a menacing device underneath—a gun.

“Now or never, Vicky!”

The drone's gun had turned on Hayes, but he was watching her. Waving her on.

She ran for it. As she neared the edge she had the inspiration to change directions. A slight course correction toward the smaller voice drone.

She cleared the lip. Time ground to halt as she sailed the gap, and it appeared to give her enough time to both float and turn her head to see another drone rising at the exact spot where she'd been aiming. It would have been a mirror image of what happened to Hayes, but her drone had the advantage of coming into view the instant she jumped. If she'd gone with Hayes, they'd have both barely cleared it. If she'd gone late…

She crashed on the rocky surface of the roof. The pea gravel forced her off her feet with a painful slide. Hayes grabbed her arm before she settled to a stop and she was back on her feet and on the run. Time was still running funny, and in her heightened awareness, she noticed the strange dart lodged in his right arm.

“Run, girl, run!” she thought.

5

They'd gotten between the industrial air conditioners. The galvanized steel sheets of the outer skins of the units made it easy to slide between them. They were arranged in rows and columns, so they could hide from view of the two drones while they planned their next move.

“What were those things?”

“Part of the plan, my dear. I told you I like to plan ahead. Well, that's kind of a motto of these people.”

“Like, they have special drones that try to catch people jumping buildings?” she asked with mock wonder.

He ignored her tone. “They have drones to help them get control of a city filled with zombies. I don't know what their functions are, exactly, but it fits their modus operandi. Why spend manpower killing zombies, spreading the infection, etcetera, when you can build a bunch of drones to go out—night and day—killing the plague victims.”

“And potential plague victims,” she said with understanding.

“Yes.” He paused, breathing hard from their exertion. “I guess that's what they'd do. Kill everyone.” His smile was gone. “They're thinking far ahead.”

“Hans said his family had been planning for something since the second World War,” she volunteered. Hans' secret was out of the bag.

“The NIS is a government agency, but it is also a way of life for these people. They watched over the levers of state while privately planning for its collapse. My wife's, uh, family, hinted as much. But my interest was in medicine and immunology. I didn't care about stockpiling berets in secret mines. I always thought that was kind of crazy.”

It was Victoria's turn to laugh. “We're in the Zombie Apocalypse, now. I think every kind of crazy is back on the table. And Hans was proof they knew how to stockpile.”

“So what do we do now? What was that spiky thing in your arm?”

“It was either a poison dart, or a mixed drink swizzle stick,” he snickered.

She looked at him with a suitable frown. And a touch of fear. Of all the rotten luck, she figured if Hayes died here on this rooftop, she'd follow soon after.

“Don't worry. If it was poison, we'd be short one man already.”

Always a joke.

A rush of air washed over them. A drone was nearby. A big one.

“Who was talking on the little drone? Elsa, I assume?”

“In the flesh. Though I have no idea where she is. She could control that drone from Afghanistan if she wanted.”

By a coincidence of timing, the small talkie drone appeared just overhead. The space between the air conditioners was wide enough for the small thing to drop in, if it wanted. For now, it hung a few feet above the units.

“You can't hide in there forever. I'll get control of those drones you hacked, and my men will be along shortly to collect you. I was going to make your death simple and fast, but you're costing me time and men. I think I'm going to have to change my plans and make your death a little more...painful.” The drone laughed.

“I got us painful death. Sorry about that,” Hayes joked.

Liam! I need you.

She willed her thoughts to reach out to him, hoping by some miracle he would ride to her rescue. She didn't believe for a second that he'd fallen into a trap or had been killed or captured. Even if she couldn't hear his thoughts, she felt his presence.

“You have to get us out of here, Hayes. Tell me you have a plan?”

“Oh, I do.”

“He always has a plan,” said the drone. “This time, his plan has failed. I'm almost through to those drones.”

Hayes whispered. “She wouldn't say that unless she was having trouble,” he said with a wink.

“Get ready to run,” he said, almost too quiet to hear.

Louder, he said, “Vicky has a hidden gun. It's going to cost you some more men to come in and get us.”

“Oh, Douglas. You're such a terrible liar. As a man, you wouldn't understand how absurd that statement was. She was patted down. Her clothing wouldn't allow a pocket knife to be hidden, much less a big bad gun. Care to try again?”

Hayes counted off with his fingers.

Three.

Two.

One finger, up to the drone.

He ran. She followed him along the central column between the long rows of A/C units. They were going toward the far end and the landing platform.

“It's going to be close,” Hayes shouted back to her.

“What is? What are we doing?”

“Just run!”

As if I have a choice.

They cleared the last unit and were in the open. For the moment the air was clear of any air traffic. They hit the steps up to the flat landing platform, hopping a small gate on the top step which said: “Danger: Spinning Rotors” in mean lettering.

Hayes crouched just inside the gate. When she settled next to him, they both looked back. The three drones on the other building were still hovering in front of the exit doorway.

“One of the drones is down,” he said plainly.

Looking again, she'd been mistaken. The third drone was over there, but it had landed, and its rotor was slowly spinning down.

“If she can't take control, all she has to do is turn them off.”

A second drone was descending, too.

The two white drones still hovered high above. Hayes nodded to them.

“They'll come down when given the orders. There's no way they didn't see us run up here.”

Moments went by. She knew they'd be swooping in, and they had no defenses up on the flat surface of the helipad.

6

The two drones above began moving their way. The little black “talkie” joined them like a cattle dog driving the sheep.

A gust of air caught them from behind, nearly pushing Victoria into the protective gate. A white helicopter had come in at high speed from somewhere behind them, and it was angled up steeply as it tried to rid itself of speed.

“Oh my God,” was all she could say as it bore down on them.

In seconds the force diminished from tornado to gale force. Hayes was up.

“Run!”

The helicopter had righted itself and made as if it was going to land on the platform. She looked at the two smaller drone helicopters, and they had closed half the distance.

She ran.

She recognized the helicopter. It was the same one Hayes used to capture Grandma Marty, and later it was how he and Jane escaped Riverside. Hayes leaped into the open back door. The skids bounced up slightly, then came back down.

Hayes motioned for her to drop down, which she found odd, but his face was so uncharacteristically serious she did as he indicated. As she went down, he slid the door shut.

“Oh, shiitake!”

In one long second, a drone passed over her head, slammed into the almost-closed door of the helicopter, and shattered into tiny bits. Some of the debris bounced back at her, but the rotors tumbled with a good bit of the engine mechanism to the back of the bigger copter. Much of the rest of it deflected underneath.

The door slid back open while the pilot maneuvered to steady the helicopter.

Hayes was frantically motioning her to come to him.

A quick look behind. The other white drone was close, but still hovering.

On her feet, she felt the sting of something square in the middle of her back. It caused her to stumble the last few feet, but she caught herself on the side of the copter. Hayes reached down to pull her in.

“Quick!” he shouted.

Another sting in her back.

She got her foot in the cabin.

Sting. She'd been hit again. This one pierced her right butt cheek.

“Ow!”

The door slid shut, but the window was shattered, and the hole exposed her to further harassment from the drone. She and Hayes both fell to the floor.

“Go! We're in.”

The helicopter tilted to the right.

We made it.

“Hold on,” Hayes shouted. As if it needed to be said—

Something slammed into her door. A broken fan blade sailed above her head and shattered the far side window, but didn't break through. It and a mass of other debris came in through the left window and piled up on the far side floor.

They'd crashed the other drone into the helicopter.

She hugged the aluminum floor as the pilot made a best effort to get her to fall into every seat and door. When they finally steadied to an even flight path, she was up against the broken rotor blade. The smell of an electrical fire was strong in the compartment. Several components of the broken drone were smoldering, but not on fire.

A series of explosions rocked the aircraft. The pilot banked hard to the left, giving them all a view of the mansion exploding almost directly below. It was a big bomb—

Hans' mansion.

Hayes crawled to the front of the cabin, then tossed back a pair of headphones for her. She planted them on her head as her stomach lurched and she lifted off the floor—hovering for a fraction of a second. The pilot had dipped the aircraft. She slid forward as she returned to the floor, then clawed her way to a seat.

The wind blew through the broken door window, making the wind noise intolerable until she had the 'phones on.

“Vicky, you there?”

She put the boom mic in front of her mouth. “Don't call me Vicky,” she replied brusquely.

“You OK?”

“I'm alive.”

“Elsa sprung our trap! But we're being pursued by her drones. We have to stay low and fast to avoid them.”

She wasn't able to argue. Glued as she was to her seat, she could only see forward, into the cockpit. The pilot sat on the left—her red hair was bracketed by her headphones, and Hayes sat on the right. Each of them leaned with the changes in directions. Their flight path seemed random and unsteady, which was probably their intention.

“Are we going to find Liam?”

Jane turned back to her, though her mirrored sunglasses hid her expression. She wore a frown.

Hayes was the one to respond. “We have to get away for a while. I'm sorry. Those drones were suicidal for us. Elsa was suicidal for us.”

Silence for several seconds.

“Victoria. We have to find Grandma.” He handed back a heavy clipboard with a pen attached to a metal chain. “Please. Write it down. We'll take no chances of being overheard. Who knows what kind of listening equipment is on that broken drone.” He pointed to the pile of junk which had rolled all over the rear cabin floor.

She sat with the clipboard on her lap. Thinking.

“I made a promise to Liam that I wouldn't leave without telling him where I was going.” She spoke quietly, though it was picked up in the comm system.

She ran the numbers, as Liam often joked. Could she be put down somewhere, then sneak back into the camp? What if Liam never—

No! Liam is fine. Just like me.

Could they look for Liam from the helicopter? She admitted she had no idea where to start in the city. The only information she had was that he went to a railroad loading dock somewhere near downtown. That left a lot of ground to search.

All while drones attempted suicide by slamming into them.

“Victoria. I know how you feel. Trust me. But we have to clear this airspace. If they send a plane to fetch us, we'd have no chance. You have to give us a destination.” Jane's voice was soothing and made total sense.

I'm sorry Liam.

She judged that of all the bad options, Liam would want her to protect his Grandma above all else. Hayes had shown her clear proof he had a lead on the cure, and that it was all due to the blood he'd drawn from her. It stood to reason that the next step was to work with him get more samples humanely. Surely Grandma would cooperate if it was all explained to her by someone who had seen the results, so far.

Elsa was the x-factor. What if she told Hayes where to find Grandma, and Elsa followed them in? What if this was all an elaborate trap to get her to reveal her location? Hayes said he planned ahead, and that Elsa planned even further ahead than he did.

She was gripped by indecision.

“Please. I can't keep flying in circles.”

Do what Liam would do.

He would have some suitably crafty plan that would get her where she wanted to go, but wouldn't reveal the location of Grandma until she could be sure of their intentions. Somehow, he'd been able to protect the old woman through the Apocalypse, and now she had to do the same.

I'm not going to betray her. "Don't trust anyone," is what Liam would say.

With a long sigh, she picked up the pen and wrote her response.

She handed the board back to Hayes.

He turned back with a frown after looking at her answer but said nothing. He handed it to Jane.

The helicopter turned south.

Chapter 11: Warfighter

Nineteen days since the sirens.

John Jasper stood on the levee, engulfed in quiet admiration for the army of undead crawling, walking, and running toward humanity’s last refuge. Though Cairo, Illinois was far from the last human-occupied town in the dying world, it was his town. The men and women behind him had given him the keys to their fair village, with the simple caveat he must help them survive. They placed their trust in him, and this was the moment he decided he would do everything in his still-considerable power to save it.

Twenty-four hours ago he'd been stripped of his command and arrested by Elsa, then—though he didn't advertise it—he'd been beaten up by the skulking woman. He was tossed into a watery grave by her minions, but he clawed his way back to life, only to discover she'd taken his battalion to points unknown. Yesterday he spent his day organizing the civilians to defend their own town, but today he'd gotten lucky when some of his unit returned. However, they were pursued by the textbook definition of a horde. Now, standing there, he had a few final minutes to prepare.

As he’d done many times before, he studied the layout of the battlefield. Always searching for the advantage over an unpredictable enemy.

The town of Cairo sat on a wedge of land that looked like a long finger, pointing south. On the west, the Mississippi River streamed fast and wide. On the east, the mighty Ohio did the same. He could see both rivers from his position up on top of the east-west levee that was now the northernmost berm—a wedding band at the base of the finger—between the zombies and his people. Below the levee, to the north, was the massive public works effort the locals called “the ditch.” Elsa and her people had ordered the construction, and the result was an impressive water-filled obstacle that would be very difficult for the zombies to get across.

Looking back on those days, he recalled an innocent statement Elsa made about the construction that only now made sense.

“This ditch project ought to keep the locals too busy to revolt.”

It was the kind of thing a government employee might joke about, but it had kept the locals very busy—and tired—at the same time she was planning her own secretive projects. Even when she ordered him to put his military units outside the levees so as to not intimidate the locals, he didn’t see what she was really up to. She’d tricked him. Tricked the whole town.

Now most of his defensive units had been ordered to the north to support the Orwellian-named “Operation Renew America” convoy, while he was left with nothing.

I do have the rebels.

The irony stuck him, even in the face of such pressing danger, and he had to reconcile it all.

Elsa had been worried about rebellion for some reason. She put those men and women to work digging and toiling in the hot sun. They had no time for do much else. His military force was kept busy fighting off the odd zombie rush, or planning for the larger battle she assured him was coming. Then, it was her that ended up being the rebel. She left in the middle of the night with his troops, and the town became an open buffet for the zombies.

But some of his men came back. They disobeyed orders to return so he could command them. Was he the traitor? Were they? And, strangely, he didn’t know if Elsa was really a traitor. As a creature of the chain of command, he felt strongly there had to be someone left alive above them all. And if that person or persons had a grasp of the bigger picture, his actions could be hobbling that effort. Any general could appreciate that.

They shouldn’t have cut me out of the loop.

He turned to Colonel Vince Thompson as his anger flamed out. He had no time, once his mind was made up, to dwell on the past. “I need your tanks up on this levee, spaced out with a couple of hundred yards between the two. You don’t have to worry about return fire, so use the front of the levee to get the best angles. Sweep what you can out there,” he pointed to the arriving horde, “but try to focus on the thickest bunches. Our ammo isn’t endless.”

As he pointed to the eastern side of the levee, he gave instructions for the Bradley’s and the Humvees. His goal was to provide enough firepower along the levee that they could knock down the bulk of the zombies before they reached the ditch. He had no illusions about their fate if enough zombies stacked themselves into that waterway. It would take tens of thousands of bodies to fill it up, but there were many times that number advancing across the field. They were still pouring over the distant interstate.

Between his introspection and handing out orders, the fastest elements of the tide had crossed to about the midpoint of the field.

“Close the gate,” he shouted down to the team in charge of that. In moments the heavy door began to creak its way across the road into town. When sealed, they would be surrounded on all sides by a steep levee, and a moat. Essentially they’d become a medieval fortress town.

The modern steel of the Abrams and Bradley’s was welcome, but he feared the real battle would be won or lost by Chloe and her teams of spear-builders. Yesterday he’d tasked her with arming the citizens in any way they could, and it was decided that since guns were scarce in the town thanks to the former mayor, they would have to depend on spears and other hand-held weapons.

This is exactly like a medieval battle.

If they had more time, they could have killed deer for sinew and crafted bows from local trees. They could have fashioned stakes to skewer the approaching zombies. Maybe they’d have had time to build catapults. Then the similarities to those ancient battles would have been complete.

Even now a gaggle of teenaged boys traipsed across a field in the town, heading for him on the levee. They carried metal poles—Chloe had delivered for him.

He recognized the fear on their faces, even from such a distance.

It was the same fear he kept hidden from his own.

2

“How did it come to this? Why are they all coming here?” Tom—his longtime friend and aid—asked.

“Elsa said it was because of the rivers. They wandered out from Chicago and Indy, hit the rivers, and found their way here.”

“So are these from Chicago or Indianapolis?”

“Who knows. It doesn’t matter. They’re here, now.”

The two Abrams tanks had come up the ramp and were in the process of getting into position on opposite ends of the levee. There was a lot of ground to cover—about a mile. He sent the two Bradley’s to the far end where the levee bowed north a little. They would fire their M242's almost sideways, along the frontage of the ditch. His hope was they would catch the zombies before they could fall into the waterway and clog it up.

That effort will fail.

For all his planning, he knew how it would end. That’s why he tried to stay in the moment. He wanted to do the best he could in the time he had.

“The Humvees will stay in the middle. I want them to spray that bridge over the ditch, Tom. Let them know.” The ditch started from an existing waterway which channeled water away from the levee frontage. It was now several times wider, and much deeper. He didn’t have the resources to blow the one stout bridge over it.

Tom, holding the radio, sent the message. The trucks had been waiting on the ramp up, and now sprang to action with their orders. When he was done, they both watched the dance.

“I wish I had air power. That’s one thing Elsa took from us that we can’t duplicate.”

“Maybe we should have tethered men in balloons out in that field. It would have distracted those things from coming here,” Tom said with a touch of regret.

“We could have used little blimps with fresh meat hanging from them, and walked those zombies right into the rivers. Tom, you’re a genius!” John replied, though he wasn’t serious. He didn’t have balloons, blimps, or bloody meat. But something that simple could have helped them.

Tom, rising to the challenge, continued. “We could have built more ditches. Maybe put some bungee sticks at the bottom. Or, maybe we dump glue out there, so they all get stuck. Or—”

“Glue?” John said thoughtfully.

“As if, huh?”

"Yeah," he said with distraction. He didn't want to fix himself and his people to this levee, or this town if he could help it.

He looked at the sky, then grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper. He scribbled something down, and handed it to Tom. The other man looked at it grimly, then pocketed it.

“Find me one of those and you’ll be the hero of Cairo.”

"You want me out of the battle?"

"I want you here, but need you there," he said while pointing at the paper. "I think that's where we're going to end up."

"I'll be as fast as I can." Tom smiled, then began his jog down the ramp, off the levee. Before he got too far he stopped and turned around. “Good luck, sir.” He snapped a salute, then kept going.

“Everyone has their mission,” he said quietly while looking at the creeping mass of death as it continued to slither across the miles of farmland to his north.

Men and women from the town streamed up the ramp, taking their place on top of the levee. Many were there to watch, he was disappointed to see, but he wouldn’t ask them to leave. Much like the early Civil War battle at Bull Run, the citizens had to see firsthand what this new type of warfare would entail. It would either send them screaming, or harden their souls so they could do what was needed to survive.

Others were there to fight. Some had guns. Too few. Many of the others carried shovels, hoes, and sharp sticks. One older black woman had a bright yellow broom handle that had a deadly point on one end. The broom’s bristles were still attached to the other.

The teens with the metal spears made it close to the top of the levee, though they stood on the backside, as if unwilling to face the menace they knew was over the top. So much like every young man in every war ever fought. They would fit into any of the eternal PowerPoint slideshows on morale and new recruits he’d endured over his career.

“You boys! Over here. Front and center.” Though he wasn’t dressed like a general, his voice carried the order and pulled them over to him.

When they were standing a few feet away, he saw their eyes were universally sucked out to sea, at the black tide seeping in. There wasn’t much he could say about that.

“I see you’ve got your spears. Did Miss Chloe make those for you?”

The three boys seemed to silently defer to each other for who would respond. Finally, a teen boy that could have been a football star in a past life began. “No, sir. Chloe has a team working with construction materials, but she insisted we all learn how to cut our own. We made these spears.”

His trust in Chloe was well placed.

“That’s excellent. After today, you will need to know those skills so you can take care of your own families. Your own towns. This is the JV match.”

The lie sailed off his tongue like the catapult he wished he had. He wanted them to feel confident heading into this fight, and parsing it in their own language seemed appropriate. The truth, in this instance, would only send them to an early grave. And then he’d have to put them down, too.

One of the other boys spoke up. Looking at the trio, they all could have been high school athletes. “A man showed us how to fight with this,” he held up his sharpened rebar spear, “so we can thrust it into the zombies' brains and yank it back out.”

Each piece of rebar was about two feet long but had a six-inch right hook at the base. The boys showed him how they would hold the base, point the thing kind of like a gun, and then drill it into the head of the enemy combatants. They explained that the natural serrations of the steel rods would keep them from getting stuck inside…

The boy’s faces paled as they discussed the implications of how it could get stuck.

“Don’t worry about it, men. These aren’t people anymore—”

So help me God, they can’t be.

“—they're the undead. Our loved ones are gone. These things are just the disease walking their bodies around, as the ultimate insult to you, to me, and everyone who loved the people they were. You will be doing the greatest service to humanity by putting them out of their misery.”

It was as close as he’d come to a pep talk. And it was only for the three boys in his earshot. But he was pleased to see it seemed to work. They visibly gripped their spears tighter and patted each other on the back as a show of mutual support. They even—almost—looked at the dark wave without flinching.

He hadn’t created unthinking fighting machines with his few words—he would need weeks of basic training to take an honest crack at that—but he’d given them a bit more courage than they had when they walked up the hill. That would have to be enough.

3

It wasn’t long before the first shots barked out from the big dogs. The Bradley’s on the far end were putting rounds on target. The small arms fire of rifles and shotguns was constant background noise he didn’t even notice anymore. It just always chattered away, somewhere.

Though the dark waters were filling the fields in front of him, the fact was zombies had been hitting his line almost continuously for weeks. Sometimes singly, but often in small groups. A few times they’d had major assaults, as on the night he was tossed in the ditch. A small part of his mind wondered if the zombies ebbed and flowed here based on his own drama. First, they rose up when he was in danger from traitors. Now, they were attacking to test his mettle at defending Cairo on his terms.

Am I being tested?

There was no more time for introspection. He got into his Humvee and prepared to lead his men and women into battle. He eyed the radio, wondering if some signals intelligence shop was listening in. Maybe this battle would be recorded and studied by future warfighters, in a new West Point.

“Warfighters? Why not?”

In a few minutes, he had assigned call signs to all his equipment—all ten pieces. Two Abrams, Two Bradley’s, and six Humvees, including his own. He was Warfighter. The others were simply named Alpha 1 and 2, Bravo 1 and 2, and so on. He had no recon, no heavy weapons platoons, no foot soldiers to speak of, besides the townsfolk. They were outside his radio net and had no real leader besides himself.

He hopped back out of the truck and found the three boys. They were crouched low on the military crest of the levee—not that they knew the term—while waiting for the battle to begin.

“You three!”

When they saw him, they came over again, as if knowing they were wanted.

“Please tell me one of you young men was a quarterback in high school,” he said grimly.

One of them stepped up, though with hesitation. “I wasn’t a starter, but I can throw the ball.”

“That’s not what I need, son. I need a leader. Someone who can take my orders—I’m the QB today—and tell my soldiers what to do. Think you can handle that? You three are going to be my runners, making you the most important pieces of my battle plan.”

He thought this was the time they’d either sack up or whither away.

“You can count on us, sir,” said the backup QB.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Tyler, sir. And this is Xander and Rando.” He gestured to the other two in turn.

“Excellent. You’ll each have a zone.” He pointed to the western Abrams tank, still adjusting itself far down the levee. “Xander, you’ll be down there.” He pointed to the eastern end. “Rando, you’ve got that end. And Tyler, you’ve got the middle. I’m counting on you, as that’s where the battle will be won or lost.”

“What do you want us to do,” Tyler asked with a hint of fear.

“Don’t worry about that. You just do what I say, and everything will be fine. Just hang out right next to my truck and I’ll send you with orders soon enough.”

He motioned Tyler to follow him to his open door. The voices on the radio were still calm and collected, which was good.

“I want you to get over to that crowd of spectators. I want them off the top of the levee, but they can watch from the backside. I need to have room to drive my vehicles back and forth on this road.” He studied the boy’s face to see how he would handle the necessary task. “And when you’ve got that done, I want you to find another boy and ask him to find Chloe, wherever she’s making spears, and tell her to get moving. We’re out of time.”

“Go!”

The salute was clumsy, but he returned it. His snap judgment was that Tyler would serve him well.

“Xander and Rando, up front.”

The boys ran to him.

“You two sound like professional wrestling names. You’re not wrestlers, are you?”

Two head shakes.

“I need each of you to go to that group of townies—my foot soldiers—and get five or six of them to go stand near each tank. Their jobs are to keep the people away, so the tanks don’t run them over, but eventually, they might be called upon to defend each tank from the zombies.”

The implications were clear and damning. It was an admission of the outcome of the battle, even before it began.

“You have a problem?”

The two boys shared a look but said nothing. They shook their heads no.

“This is war. I need you two out there helping me. We all have to contribute.”

He considered doubling up on the pressure for them, making them feel key to the whole victory, but in the balancing act between spurring them to action or making them soil their pants, he stuck with the former. They would either figure it out, or they wouldn’t.

As they ran off, a black man in a green John Deere Gator rolled up. Marty Peters sat next to him. A tiny woman holding on for dear life to the side rail, clearly uncomfortable.

He jumped out to greet her.

“Come to watch the show?”

To watch me?

“Oh, my lands, no. But Duncan insisted. And he’s my ride.”

“She’s too modest,” replied Duncan. “Marty pointed out that we needed to be up here seeing the news, as she called it, so we can be ready to run if things go bad.” He pointed down into the town. “If we wait for zombies to arrive in the town square, it would be too late to escape.”

“Sounds like good judgment. Why don’t you two stay here with me? If things get bad, we can all go down in my armored truck.” He patted his Humvee’s door.

“We don’t want to be a bother,” Marty replied.

“Not at all. I would be honored, in fact.”

His mind would not stop delving into introspection. Having Marty around sated a deep need to be seen during his greatest hour, but it was also a reminder—like the Roman Emperors of old—that he must account for the fragility of man. His defense would mean nothing if the town was overrun and people like Marty were consumed.

The plans altered, in a tiny way, to accommodate her. He wouldn’t admit, even to himself, how he intended to end this impossible fight. The three boys, his own men, and the townies may perish, but not her. There was something special about her he couldn’t quite place. But he felt it.

Alpha-1 fired its main gun, sending a wave of sound over the spectators, and a wave of tiny balls into the ocean of undead. The modern equivalent of grapeshot was devastating to a great swath of zombies now approaching the ditch.

I’ll keep you alive, Marty.

A cheer rose up as first blood was drawn.

4

Alpha-1 and -2 took turns plastering the zombie swarm with their shotgun rounds, and despite the great number of fallen, he was compelled to stop them.

The Abrams tanks carried a mixture of ammo, most of it designed to counter enemy tanks. Here in middle America, war planners probably didn’t anticipate the need for canister ammo to be used against citizens in the open. As such, they would have very few rounds of the distinctly anti-personnel rounds, and too many of the anti-vehicle rounds.

“Alphas, this is Warfighter actual. Hold onto your M1028 rounds. How copy?”

The radio crackled. “Warfighter actual, this is Alpha-1. Hold on M1028 rounds. Good copy. Over.”

Alpha-2 said the same.

“Give ‘em hell with the fifty cals. Out,” he ordered.

At some point, he may order them to use the anti-tank rounds on the zombies, though he didn’t think they’d be effective in the least. For now, he held that order. Everything cost money, and he’d probably never get replacements. Some day a platoon of Soviet armor could drive through Illinois—he had to be ready.

Today, the mere act of moving the tanks up onto the levee cost gasoline—another irreplaceable commodity. He’d need to conserve that, too.

The leading edge of the zombies—a group of runners that looked like they belonged to a track club—reached the ditch and ran right over the edge. They fell five or six feet into the water, and out of view. He knew from personal experience it was difficult to claw up the near side of the ditch—where the dirt had been piled—but it was possible. Even though he knew those first zombies wouldn’t swim across and claw their way up in just a few seconds, he expected a hand to pop up at the top of the berm any moment.

It distracted him until a group of five or six black men and a couple of women ran by, led by Xander. The boy gave him a wave, and he returned it with a salute. Everything was going surprisingly well on the planning side.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” What would von Moltke think of this battle?

Upon study, he realized the running zombies must walk most of the time. Otherwise, there’d be no way to explain how they weren’t miles ahead of the rest of the walking dead.

As the horde closed the distance, he began to hear them. The guttural moans grew, but so did an odd collection of screeches, wails, and the very unusual sing-song calls of some of them. The runners were the vanguard, but even they were acting strangely. Some of the leaders ran head-first into the ditch, but others were deflected by the water and ran sideways along the moat. Most appeared to be aimless, but others happened upon the bridge and crossed.

“...survives contact.”

If all the runner zombies converged on the bridge, they could cross it en masse and be upon the levee spectators in less than a minute. He didn’t think it was likely, but he wasn’t going to mess this up by assuming they were as dumb as they seemed.

“Bravo-2. I need you to move to block the bridge down there.” It pained him to sacrifice a vehicle, but there was no other way… “I’ll try to find a replacement for you, but you are the fastest I have right now. Please confirm. Over.”

No reply.

“Bravo-2, this is Warfighter actual. Do you copy?”

Static.

“Bravo-1, do you copy?”

He got out of his Humvee and looked in the direction of the Bradley’s. He had to climb onto the hood so he could see over the crowd. Dillon hadn’t been able to clear the spectators, though to his credit he was motioning some of them back.

“What the actual horseshit is this?”

Bravo-1, far down the line, began to move toward the ditch. It crawled off the hill, started up the earthen berm, then bogged down on the top. The tracks spun, but he could see it was high-centered on its hull.

Bravo-2 had gone down the other side of the levee, into town.

He jumped down, and returned to his radio, intending to get his answer.

The screams of the people on the levee made him stop. The confused crowd scattered in multiple directions. Most ran down the backside of the levee into town, but some ran toward the zombies. Some simply fell where they stood…

“What's going on here?”

Marty happened to be nearby. “They’re scared,” she said with finality.

“But why?” His statement was incredible, even to himself. The why was pretty easy. The real question was “why now?”

At that moment a sickly sweet smell washed over him. It reminded him of a school janitor's puke dust. It came in like the first gust of a major thunderstorm.

Without realizing it, he jumped in his Humvee and pulled the heavy door shut with a slam.

Voices on the radio called to him. Someone called Alpha-something wanted a sitrep from their commander. Orders needed to be given.

“Warfighter. This is Alpha-2. Our foot support is banging on the hull and shooting at us to let them in. What are your orders? Over.” The man on the radio was annoyed.

He should kill them all.

“No!” he said aloud.

His hands were on the steering wheel. Was he about to drive away? What direction was he planning to go? He admitted it didn’t matter.

“General John Jasper, United States Army. Get a grip!”

He took a deep breath, inhaling the stink from outside.

It was in the truck with him.

“The zombies exude the smell of fear. Amazing...”

He sat frozen for a moment, but his head cleared as he did so.

“This is Warfighter actual. The zombies are causing this. They're causing the panic. Please respond. Over.” On the modern battlefield they'd be buttoned up for fear of NBC attacks, but who would fear radiation or poison gas when fighting zombies?

“Warfighter actual, this is Bravo-2. We’re OK. We, uh, woke up in this new position.”

“Bravo-1 is back on station.”

He opened the door, and waited for the smell to overcome him again, but it seemed to have been spent on the initial blast. The sick smell was there, but he was able to tune it out.

While he had his troopers back in the game, the civilians had it much worse. They lacked the discipline and support system of the military, and—John imagined—they suffered accordingly. Some of them ran over the bridge, into the approaching zombies, while those on the back of the levee were now inside the town.

But the thing that caught his attention more than anything else was the little green Gator. Much like Bravo-2, the driver of that vehicle had been overcome by the olfactory assault and had driven madly in the wrong direction. In seconds he’d taken the vehicle down the levee and had it nearly to the top of the berm.

As he watched, the driver continued to run up the berm, then over. He’d tossed himself into the ditch now filling with zombies.

Just before he toppled over the far side, the tiny woman passenger threw herself out of her seat, and onto the dirt pile. She was visible to all the humans and zombies alike.

Nope. My plan didn’t survive for ten minutes.

Chapter 12: Gator Ride

Marty felt the soil beneath her. The smell of the earth overpowered the stench of the dead. Her arms and legs ached, but she didn’t feel the unmistakable pain of a break. The soft ground had cushioned her fall from the slow-moving, doomed Gator.

“Mr. Duncan, are you there?”

She hoped he jumped at the last second, as she did.

There was no response. The zombies, however, were much louder as they arrived below her. She was sprawled, front side down, facing out over the fields. The zombies were without number as they surged in her direction. Below her, in the water-filled ditch, scores of them splashed and thrashed against each other. It was a bubbling cauldron of evil.

“They aren’t evil, Marty.”

“Al! Thank God.”

“Hiya Marty,” he said with his signature Jersey drawl. “They aren’t evil. They aren’t anything. They’re mindless bodies that don’t know they’re dead.”

Al sat next to her on the dirt. He, too, looked out over the approaching wave. It was like being in the front row of a movie theater. She was compelled to move backward...but not without Al.

“I’ve failed you, Al. I couldn’t protect anyone in my family during this plague. The only one I could help was Liam, and he’s gone again. If this is what the rest of the world looks like, I don’t think any of us can survive.”

“You hear the sirens’ call, Marty. You have a gift.”

It made no sense, but she was used to his confusing words. Or her own confusion. She still wasn’t sure if Al was in her mind, or if her mind made him up. Either way, he forced her to make choices, which she admitted had kept her alive through some desperate times.

“If I hear the call, why couldn’t I talk to you while I’ve been here in Cairo?”

He didn’t say anything, but he nodded out to the zombies.

“You’re not going to say, are you?”

“Marty, your search for answers is admirable, but as I’ve told you before, you can unlock the answers from your own brain.”

She didn’t turn around, though she knew the general and his tanks wouldn’t be there. She heard no gunfire from back there, reinforcing her belief she was dreaming. Daydream. Nightmare. Whatever.

“I couldn't hear you because the zombies weren’t here.”

“That sounds implausible,” Al echoed from an earlier conversation.

“But not impossible,” she retorted. “I’ve been safe inside the town, far from any zombies.”

“Maybe that’s it,” he said cryptically, “but what are you planning to do to save them?” He pointed out into the field, where she saw Liam and Victoria standing on an abandoned tank as they tried to fend off the infected horde.

In the pit of her stomach, she felt a firm yank. The realization that she was somehow responsible for their safety—her, a 104-year-old woman now lying on the leading edge of millions of zombies—made her cringe.

“But you already helped me save them,” she said weakly. Though true, that was all in the past.

“And now I’m going to help you help them again. This doesn’t end until you find the cure to the plague, my dear Marty.”

“Is this about that old computer?”

She thought back to her earlier meeting, where Al showed her an ancient computer in a closed room. After she had accessed it, she was able to...control a single zombie. It had saved the lives of Liam and Victoria when they most needed help.

“You three have an important connection. That computer was merely a way to organize your mind and access information there.”

“No. That’s not true at all. I saw you move that zombie so it helped Liam.”

“My dear. That sounds like magic. Are you suggesting the world is filled with magic? That you are a sorceress and that you and I used that magic to cause it to rescue him?”

That stuck a nerve against her religious sensibilities. She didn’t believe in magic. Her belief was in a single benevolent God.

“No...I think, I...”

Her words failed her.

“My sweet, dear Martinette. You’ve overlooked something very important from our first meeting, but now isn’t the time for loquacious expositions. You really are lying here on this berm, and those zombies are definitely over there, trying to get at you. They are attempting to get at us both.”

“What? How? You can see in both worlds?” It seemed obvious since he said he was in her mind. Supposedly he could see through her eyes, but his words suggested something more.

In a prior meeting, he had waved off the notion that he was an agent of God. Or, at least didn’t explicitly say he was. He suggested he was part of her mind, helping her cope with all the bad things that happened to her since the zombies came. But he left open the possibility of...something else.

“Or...” were his final words from that conversation. If he wasn’t speaking for God, and he wasn’t her own brain making things up, that could mean any number of things...

She startled herself awake. The pain in her arms and legs was real this time. The same as she felt inside her dream.

It has to be God.

Whatever else was going on, God was guiding her. For now, she would trust in that to get her and her family to safety.

Wherever that was.

2

Marty felt someone touching her back, helping her sit up properly. She judged it was just about the last person in the world she expected.

A young teen girl—Debbie—that she knew from her time back in the refugee house. She’d never seen the girl without her phone, but now she looked like something out of a movie. She wore big black boots, black pants, and wore two long-sleeved shirts that draped over her like wild capes. The ensemble was completed by a military-style ball cap that she might have gotten from a surplus store or any of the soldiers that had been protecting the city.

“Are you OK, Grandma?” Debbie asked her.

“I’m fine,” she said with suitable ambiguity. She wasn’t fine, but she didn’t like to complain. “Just a little shaken.”

“The stink, like, made everyone go crazy for a few minutes. You were lucky.”

They both faced the horde, but could also see down into the water. The implication that she should have gone over the side with the dazed Mr. Franks was obvious. The very back of the gator stuck out of the water on the far side. Duncan was nowhere to be seen, though many ruined bodies moved in the putrid waterway.

“Come on, let’s get you up.”

By the time she was on her feet, several other people had run up to offer help.

“How did you get here so fast, Miss Debbie?”

Several arms reached for her as she eased her way down the berm. It left her free to listen to the girl.

“After I met you in our house, I, like, felt a connection with you. I wanted to go with you when those men, uh, took you with that woman, but, like, I didn’t want to be a buttinski.”

Marty giggled weakly. It would be the first teenager in a long time that wanted to spend time with her.

Go easy on Liam. He came around, in the end.

“I’ve been looking for you ever since. I, like, searched houses, and stuff.”

“This whole time? Thank you, Debbie.”

“Well, I, mmm, didn’t find you until today. They gave us these spears,” she bent her back so Marty could see the rust-colored spear lashed to her back, “and told us to walk to the levee. That’s when I, uh, noticed you in that green cart thingy.”

She seemed embarrassed.

“It’s OK, child.”

“Well, I didn’t want to be geeky, and fangirl on you, but I happened to be watching when that wave of puking gas came over us all. I tossed my cookies right away, I mean, like, right away. But I felt totally fine after that. I watched your driver take you down the hill, and I started running right then. I stopped when I thought you were going over the top, but I started again when I saw you jump out. That was, really brave, you know?”

For her part, the young girl seemed to have made a miraculous transformation, though her soft spoken voice betrayed the look of woman warrior she tried to convey. The layers of clothing might be designed to fend off the bites of zombies, but she would still have to take her spear and jam it into the face of a zombie. Marty was unsure the girl could do it...or if she realized what would soon be required of her.

They began their way back up the levee. “Please take me over to that man,” she said as she pointed to the general.

The gunfire picked up as people regained their senses after the tsunami of horrid smells dissipated. By the time she’d reached the summit, many of those who had run down the backside had also returned. The nearby tank adjusted its turret and fired its machine gun as it sought targets. A man on top operated a second machine gun, though he fired less frequently.

The general was in his front seat, with his door opened. His face was pale, like maybe he’d gotten sick, too.

“Hello, Ms. Peters. I thought your goose was cooked.”

“That makes two of us. I guess it wasn’t my time.” She pointed up.

“Well, you jumped out at the right time,” he said with a weak smile.

“I wonder. I think...” Her mind was a little fuzzy, so she wasn’t sure she could make the claim. But something told her she’d seen it correctly. “...that Duncan pushed me out. I wasn’t right, either, and I wasn’t holding on as tightly as I should. I felt someone push my back, and I tumbled out of that seat, onto the dirt. It was still a miracle I didn’t break anything, but that cart was near to the ground.”

“Well, maybe Duncan knew what he was doing, even though he was overcome,” the general offered.

“Then Debbie came and got me.”

Debbie and the general smiled at each other.

“Marty, I want you off this levee. We don’t know what else is coming. I expect it will get worse before we get an upper hand.” He looked at Debbie. “Can you walk her down there?” He pointed to the inside of the front gate where the military vehicles and their families had come through. “Someone can give her a ride to a safer place in the town.”

Marty saw the uncertainty on his face.

She thought of Al’s words. Something she was missing. Was she supposed to leave? What would she do about Liam? Leaving was an option, and soon it might be a requirement, but for now she had time. And, she knew what she’d do with that time.

“My dear, let’s do as the general asks. If you take me down there, I’m sure we can find some help. I’d very much like to go back to your home.”

It’s where Liam will return. At the very least I need to leave him a note.

Her mind planned what she would write, but without having the slightest idea where she would go, her note was destined to be blank.

3

“My great-grandson, Liam, usually walks me like this.”

Debbie steadied her arm as she paced her down the gravel road on the inner slope of the levee. It wasn’t very far, but they weren't moving very fast.

“He was the boy that came from, like, the hospital, right?”

“Yes, dear, he was injured rescuing me in St. Louis.”

“I heard you all talking when he woke up. So, that pretty girl with him was his...girlfriend, right?”

Marty looked at her and winked.

“Well...I thought so. They both ran out together the day he, um, woke up. Then I guess they left together the next day?”

“That’s correct.”

“So they’re not coming back?” she asked with too much nonchalance.

She searched her feelings. The dream she had with Al placed both kids out in the middle of the zombie horde, alive, but in great peril. Was that allegory, or was it literal? If the latter, how could she have possibly known that? Al never made much sense, but lately, he made less sense than usual. Whatever the explanation, she was unable to answer Debbie’s question with authority.

“Why do you ask?” Her voice carried concern.

Debbie looked at her, and her eyes grew wide. “Oh, no reason. Well. I guess there is a reason, but it’s stupid. Just ignore me.”

She turned forward and continued down the ramp. Marty sensed that Debbie wanted her to pursue her answer.

“They’re coming back. I’m sure of it. I just can’t say when, dear.”

“Good,” she said with cheer. Then, looking at Marty with horror on her face, she followed up with, “No! I didn’t mean it like that.” She physically rubbed her hand over her face, like she wanted to wash away her effort. “I, like, am happy to help you out is all. I’ll take care of you until they make it back.”

Marty was glad for the help but was concerned for the girl. She hadn’t said two words in the days they were in the house—her face had been glued to her phone as she punched keys on it—but now she seemed to be a different person. Was it fear? Bravery? Confusion?

“That’s delightful. I would love to have the help.” It was the truth, but she was wary. In the Old World she would have never thought twice about the motives of someone so eager to help her, but here, now, everything had to be questioned. The very thought turned her inward for the remainder of their walk.

Finding a ride was easy. Getting back to the house was easy. Debbie remembered exactly where to go, and the young woman driving the SUV was eager to deliver them and get back to the front gate. Her husband was one of the soldiers up on the levee.

When they got inside, the silence was comparatively shocking. The levee was on the far side of town, and while the noise of the battle was constant—like roofers nailing in shingles two streets over—it was far enough away to be filtered out.

No one else was in the house, which was a switch from the last time she’d been there.

“My dear, where are all the kids?” She didn’t expect all the young people to be there, as they had been asked to fight with spears, but the younger kids surely wouldn’t be out there, too.

“Oh, they, like, moved them all to the middle of town. In the town center, I think.” She finished with an upward inflection, making her statement sound like a question.

“Shouldn’t we go there, too? I think maybe we should.”

“No, you can sit in your comfortable chair, like you were.” She helped Marty to the same chair where she’d spent her days while they were all together.

When she was down, she kept her face steady and calm, though she felt something else. A deep-seated fear that this wasn’t going to end well.

“Debbie. What’s wrong?” She didn’t know if that was the right tact to take, but something was wrong. She just couldn’t pin it down.

“Oh. Um.” She hesitated. “What do you mean?”

“How old are you, Debbie?”

“How old am I?” She seemed to think about it. “Seventeen, I think. I don’t know the year.”

“Seventeen. That’s a great age. Liam’s friend Victoria is seven—”

“Don’t talk about her, OK? I’m going to take care of you, Grandma.”

“Until Liam returns, right?”

Debbie’s face was sweat-covered and full of confusion. The inside of the house was much warmer than the outside air because it had been sealed like a tomb. Not as hot as the motel where she almost died, but not much better.

“I have to help you, Grandma. I, like, have to show him I can do it.”

“Liam?”

“No! The President of the United States!” She smirked. “I’m sorry. I’m tired. You need to rest for a while. When Liam gets here, we’ll get you to safety.”

Debbie sat in a chair across the room. Marty assumed she’d pull out her phone and start texting again, but the girl seemed true to her word about being tired. She crossed her arms and lowered her head to her chest, as if to sleep.

Marty had been leaning forward in her chair, hoping to convince Debbie not to leave her there. But now, in the face of the girl’s obvious need to rest, she let herself lean back into the soft recliner seat. It would be very difficult to get out of the plush chair without assistance, but if she was going to do it, she needed to park her weary muscles for a little while.

She wasn’t exactly in danger, but not safe, either. Debbie was disturbed, but she didn’t sense anything malicious about her. Maybe a good sleep would do the girl some good.

Minutes later, a distant tornado siren cranked up. It was eerily similar to the tornado sirens she’d heard on that first day, back in her home in St. Louis. Those sirens screamed for an hour, and they announced the end of the world.

These sirens only howled for sixty seconds.

Nothing trumps the end of the world.

She hoped.

Chapter 13: JDAM

As Marty and the young girl walked off the levee, John Jasper cleared his head. The defensive line had been scattered and weakened, but the zombies were too uncoordinated to take advantage of that. A comparable human force could have run themselves over the open bridge in the middle, and have been among the confused defenders in a relatively short time. The zombies, on the other hand, hit the ditch from end to end, almost at the same time. It weakened their punch.

He looked at his people. Several men and women had partially, or completely, stripped off their clothes and were doing who-knows-what in the grass on both sides of the levees. Many others were recovering from being hunched over—tossing their cookies, like the general. Others ran away. Some fought with each other. A critical few went toward the zombies.

Some stripped, puked, then fought.

It could have been worse.

He reestablished contact with his units. First, by voice. Tyler, Xander, and Rando were all nearby, though Rando had run to the base of the levee before returning. After ensuring they were solid, he worked on getting in touch with his vehicles.

The Bradley that had nearly driven into the ditch reported that they'd gotten themselves together—they were back in the game. He thought about using the other Bradley to pull the first one off the berm, but in the end, it wouldn't really matter. It could fire its main gun—the deadly M242 chain gun—and its lighter machine gun from where it sat on the dirt pile. He wasn't going to risk an extraction unless the situation out in the field stabilized.

He took a deep breath. He'd survived the critical initial contact with the enemy. So what if he'd thrown up. At least he didn't run from battle or drive himself over to the enemy side. The wave of gas created by the zombies affected everyone differently, it would seem.

“Alpha-1 and -2, focus fire on those approaching the ditch. How copy, over.”

They responded in the affirmative, but it illustrated a new problem. Alpha-2 couldn't fire anywhere near the immobilized Bradley in front of it. And, because of where the Bradley sat on the mound, it couldn't fire down and hit the zombies closest to the ditch in its sector.

Alpha-1, on his left, executed his orders perfectly. The Abrams' machine gun swept just over the top of the berm behind the ditch, and it made a satisfying swath of destruction hundreds of yards into the first echelons of the endless zombie horde. The walkers had approached behind the runners, and the crowd was growing. As best he could tell, the runners had all fallen into the water...lost from view.

The job of his military units was to keep the followers from jumping in and clogging the pipes.

Minutes later, tornado sirens spun up from the town at his back.

“Yeah, why not. Let's call them in,” he barked.

Someone is really trying to screw me over.

The emergency sirens turned off almost as soon as they got to full strength, which gave him some relief. It cleared his head so he could focus on the driving melody of gunfire. The louder the music, the more zombies fell. He likened it to Death Metal—a musical genre he hated each time his men cranked it. It was the right soundtrack as he watched the zombies get shredded up and down the line.

The dance continued for several hours. As morning turned to afternoon, the Napoleon's maxim about who is really the King of the Battlefield became a factor. It wasn't the biggest guns, or the bravest soldiers. An army marches on its stomach—it depends on supply. The quartermaster would determine the outcome of this battle, too.

He had a lot of time to think about it. Each time the truck came up the ramp of the levee to deliver ammo to his vehicles, it was one resupply closer to the end. The bullets would run out before the zombies…

They kept coming. There were so many, in fact, they had practically come to a stop. Like your typical evening commute on the interstate—there were too many bodies packed into the fields.

The zombies nearest the tanks and guns were pushed back by the force of the cold steel heading their way. It seemed to confuse them and spin them in the wrong direction. That swirl of indecision was the only thing keeping the defenders alive. And that worked into the evening until his radio crackled.

“We're out of 7.62."

He watched the writhing mass of death out in the fields. The men and women of his command had achieved the impossible. They'd held the zombies for almost a full day by whittling away at the leading edge of their battle force. The resulting stack of dead and injured zombies was ten feet high and a mile long. Each time a zombie fell, more took its place—mashing it into the ground to become part of the foundation of the dynamic monument they were all constructing.

Without the 7.62 ammo to fuel their most effective weapons, he had to think of alternatives.

The Humvees were all parked in the middle, belt-feeding their ammo onto the far end of the bridge. It was the most vulnerable point of their defense, and worth every round they'd expended there. Belatedly, he wished he'd thought of a way to blow the bridge. If the zombies got in, they'd never need the road again anyway. But blowing a bridge—even with tanks—was not an easy proposition.

Over the course of the day more and more people showed up with the spears Chloe had provided. She was earning her keep. By the time the sun was nearing the horizon, there were hundreds of people on the levee nervously holding their makeshift spears. About an equal number of people stood below the levee—nearest the town. They appeared to be the young, infirm, or groups of women managing gaggles of children. He wanted to order them away from the tip of the spear but guessed they wouldn't dare leave their loved ones on the fighting line, no matter if it made sense or not.

He caught sight of his runner, Tyler, and called him over. “You've done excellent work out there, son. But I have a new challenge for you.” He pointed down into the town. “See those cars down there? We need them up here. Pointing toward the zombies. Once it turns dark, we need to maintain the light. Get it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, son. Good luck.”

He wondered if they could survive until nightfall, but they'd have to be prepared in case they did.

2

Before the darkness fell, he OK'd the use of the remaining canister rounds from each Abrams. The shotgun blasts were by far the deadliest and most effective single rounds in his arsenal, but he had precious few of them. Even the munitions truck only carried a few extras per tank. The rest of the spare rounds, as he feared, were for use against enemy armor. He still wasn't ready to waste those.

The canisters served one important purpose, though he didn't realize it at first. Because the Bradley was in its way, Alpha-2 had to fire into the crowd at angles, instead of directly forward. This created angular ridges of broken bodies, which served as funnels to keep the dead moving along those piles, instead of straight toward the ditch.

“Alpha-1. Use canister at a 45-degree angle—about 2 o'clock—into the crowd. Alpha-2, continue to fire at your ten o' clock. Wait for zombies to fill in the gaps, then fire again. Out.”

He didn't wait for the confirmation. They each turned their turrets in the required direction, and the murdering continued.

No, they're already dead. Never forget that.

The rounds went out and knocked down bodies like bowling pins. The tungsten balls of the shotgun-like shells traveled several hundred yards into the crowd until their energy was completely absorbed by the thick number of bodies. As instructed, the tanks would wait for the zombies to walk over their fallen brothers and sisters before unloading another one on them.

It was grisly. He almost couldn't watch as heads detached and bodies evaporated. But the consolation was that it created a wedge of a sort, painted into the crowd using dead bodies as the medium. If the zombies were a waterfall, tumbling down toward the ditch, the tanks had created an inverted V shape, which would deflect the follow-on zombies away from the central bridge.

He was mesmerized by the destruction when he snapped to attention.

“John, John, John. Tsk, tsk. Who gave you permission to use my toys?”

Elsa's smooth, feminine voice cut through the harsh gargle of boring sitreps and ammunition requests. And, he admitted, it scared him.

“John? I know you're there. I can see you sitting in your little truck.”

He looked up, knowing a drone had to be flying. He spied the toothpick-thin drone with its long, narrow wings high above. He waved.

“That's right. I'm up here. Always watching. And, John, I don't like what I'm seeing.”

He keyed his mic, knowing there was no point in ignoring her.

“What can I do for you, Elsa? I'm sort of busy here.” He figured the noise of gunfire would bleed through as his supporting evidence.

“I guess I should have known you'd survive. I should have shot you myself, then thrown you in that cesspool. No matter. That can be fixed. But I can't have you messing up my plans with your traitorous rebels.”

“We aren't rebels, ma'am; we're United States Army.”

“You were Army. Just like those men and women playing soldier up in St. Louis were citizens of this great country. Now you're all rebels.”

That navy man said St. Louis was crawling with Polar Bears—a euphemism for citizens who rose up against the government as part of the Patriot Snowball movement. Though he had no love for the movement or what they stood for, he didn't feel particularly offended to now be lumped in with them. If the government was run by Elsa and her minions, he figured "rebel" described him fairly well now.

When he didn't rise to her bait, she kept at it. “You know what that means, don't you? What does the United States of America do to traitors?”

“Promotes them, apparently.”

She laughed heartily. “Oh, John. I love your spirit. That must be the zombie perfume getting to you. No, give me a second and I'll tell you...”

He watched as the Abrams' continued to hammer at the zombies. They'd done an admirable job of laying down the hate in precisely the places he envisioned when he thought up the idea of channeling the dead. It would put more zombies on each end of the ditch, but less in the exact center—and the bridge.

In a minute Elsa came back on his channel. “Military time. Hard to judge these things. You know?”

He had no idea what she was talking about.

“OK, let's try this again.” She coughed openly as if to prepare for a speech. “What does the United—”

He caught the glint of metal as it fell from the sky, but it was only a fraction of a second, and on the edge of his vision. When he turned, an explosion ripped into the wayward Bradley nearest the ditch. The explosion was so powerful, it blew down several of the civilians on that end of the levee. He felt the lurch of the earth a moment after impact.

“Dammit!” Elsa complained. “I wanted that to be timed better. Maybe the next one,” she said with a laugh.

He was on his microphone in an instant, seeing this for what it was. He spoke in a calm voice.

“This is Warfighter actual. Alpha-1 and -2, disengage. I repeat, disengage. We are under attack from—”

Would they believe him if he said Air Force? Under attack from members of the same team? Could he explain the nuance of who was firing at them?

“—unknown elements.” It was a lame declaration.

“Move into the town. How copy?”

“Oh John. I hope you notice I didn't drop it on you. Did you? I hope so. It means you aren't a threat to me. Your military hardware is the real danger to me. Just thought you ought to know that.”

There was no time for personal vendettas. He looked at his deployment. The other Bradley was far down the levee, working things on that end. If he pulled everyone back, the end would come that much sooner. If he left them to die from the air, it would also end.

He had to preserve his forces. No matter the cost. If he couldn't kill zombies from the ideal spot on the levee, he would kill them from inside the town. From another town. From wherever he found himself.

Life was long and left many opportunities for the use of precious military equipment. These were his men. His tools. He was going to save them.

“Warfighter actual. All units, abandon the levee. Find cover in the town. Out.”

“Dear John,” she laughed, “it's not me, it's you. Run, run, run. I'm gonna find you.”

Don't you have better things to do?

He wondered about that as he abandoned his own Humvee and ran to the civilians standing out on the levee, looking confused and distracted by what just happened. It only took him a minute to listen to rumors that the zombies had a magical weapon now. One that could obliterate a perfectly good armored fighting vehicle like it was nothing.

The crowd was a flight risk. It was up to him to calm it. He needed the civilians more than ever before. They all needed each other if they were to survive until tomorrow.

Somewhere above, he imagined, another 2,000-pound JDAM was waiting to pounce.

That thought stuck with him as night draped itself over the chaos.

Chapter 14: Jane

Victoria was jarred awake as a door slammed shut. In her groggy state, she observed how the helicopter tipped forward, and they began another ascent.

“Did we land?” she called out. Then, noticing Hayes was gone, she leaned so she could see outside.

A gigantic complex of steel and concrete structures filled the entire window view. White dust coated everything, like someone had shaken dirty powdered confectionery sugar from above.

“What is this place?”

“Biggest concrete plant in the world,” Jane called out from the pilot’s seat.

“You’re kidding,” she said in disbelief, though she couldn’t fathom how she could possibly know whether Jane was lying. Or that it mattered.

“But why did he get out. Why didn’t we?”

The craft banked to the left, and she saw down to the surface of the Mississippi River. They’d evidently not gone far off their course. When they stabilized again, several hundred feet up, Jane answered her.

“He said to tell you thanks, but that he can’t go to Cairo. Things are dangerous there, now.”

“Oh, but it’s OK for you and me?” The implication was that Jane was the man’s wife. Surely…

“He put me in charge of getting you to Cairo, then retrieving the old woman.”

“She has a name. It’s Marty,” she voiced into the mic for the internal comms.

“Yes. Marty. We’re going to rescue her.”

She didn’t know how to respond. Was a thank you in order, or was this all part of Hayes’ convoluted forward-thinking that he calls planning? What could possibly be more important at a concrete plant than in the city where the object of his testing had to be found?

Victoria sat back in her seat, finally giving up on watching where they were going. “You know, I don’t get you. What do you see in that guy?” she echoed his question from the security room. She didn’t expect a reply from her kinda-sort enemy, but she’d spent enough time with the man to feel a kinship of a sort with her. If she found him insufferable in just a few hours together, what must his wife think?

Jane laughed. “He’s not so bad, once you understand what motivates him.” She looked back at Victoria but didn’t elaborate.

“And, frankly, I didn’t have much choice.”

“He said something about arranged marriages...”

“Yeah, he likes to use that as an excuse, but that wasn’t really what brought us together. Or what keeps us together.”

“Because you know what motivates him?”

“Partly. He has changed since this crisis started, but for the better, actually. In the old days, he was consumed by his damned research. He was convinced he’d cure the world of Cancer. But when his priority shifted to...other goals, well, he became even more driven. I think once the plague was released, and he saw the effects, he started to relax.”

Victoria was stunned by the inappropriateness of her glib attitude but had nothing to say.

“Anyway, fixing the plague has become his driving force. But for once it's something I can directly help him with, which makes us a team again. It really feels good.”

Again, the impossibility of feeling good while the world burned was bone-jarringly insensitive to all those who had suffered because of the man. But, the whole thing forced her to look at her own relationship in another manner.

Was her relationship with Liam helped or hindered by the Zombie Apocalypse? Would she have a relationship, otherwise? Was it fair to ask questions she already knew the answers to?

They had a lot of bad times during their nightmare weeks on the run, but also some good ones. The first thing that popped in her head was that first innocent kiss behind the tree when they’d escaped St. Louis. She’d whispered in his ear that she was so glad they’d met, and that she was thankful he had rescued her. The sense of relief wasn’t just because they’d gotten out of the city filled with zombies, but that he made her forget the reason she’d left Colorado in the first place. It was one of the greatest feelings she’d experienced since leaving home.

She admitted the zombies had allowed some good things to happen. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that Hayes and his wife got to have a second chance, too.

“He still can be an ass,” Victoria said with finality.

“Oh, no question there,” Jane said with a chuckle. “But that ass is going to save the world. I firmly believe that with all my heart.”

“Don’t trust anyone.” Liam’s voice filled her mind. “You’re riding in a helicopter with the wife of the sneakiest man in America. Be careful.”

It didn’t feel like a trap, though she allowed anything was possible now that she was a prisoner inside the helicopter. She could fly her anywhere, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She had no weapons. No way to change the flow of the day.

Leaning to the window again, she watched for another thirty minutes as the chopper cruised over the countryside below. Except for the odd fire here or there, it was hard to tell anything had changed with the world. The country was still the country. Just a bunch of trees, same as before.

It all changed as they approached Cairo. She knew what to expect in terms of the big pile up of barges along the river, but she had no idea what to think of the standing room only crowd of zombies in the fields north of the town.

“Oh my God,” Victoria exclaimed into the mic.

Jane slowed the craft. “Looks like they had a hell of a fight last night,” she reported.

There were thousands of dead zombie bodies in the field. They’d been stacked up like dried leaves all along the ditch, and the waterway was solidly choked with bodies in several places. From high in the helicopter, it was hard to make out individuals in the crowd, but the moving mass appeared to flow over the bridges of the dead and then spread out again like ants from a mound.

“They’re still alive! There!” she shouted, though it was impossible for Jane to know where she pointed.

Pockets of defenders stood on the big pile of dirt behind the waterway. It appeared the dead had crossed and then gotten behind the defenders in several places. The tiny pockets of men and women lunged at the encroaching zombies when they got too close. But it was an impossible battle.

The zombies outnumbered them thousands to one.

2

“She’s down there, isn’t she?” Jane asked plainly.

Victoria had tried to throw them off the scent by pointing to the nearby town of Wickliffe, Kentucky. It was pretty much across the river from Cairo, and her plan was to land there and get a sense of whether this was truly a rescue or something more deadly for Grandma. She wasn’t going to risk her life until she knew.

But now, seeing the horde of zombies breaking through the defenses of the town, what choice did she have? Jane flew her over the middle of Cairo and seemed to slow down as if waiting for the answer. Victoria studied the landscape below, but couldn’t readily pick out where she’d left Grandma Marty in her temporary home.

There were no zombies running down the streets of the town, at least she didn’t see any from up in the sky, but that time was coming.

“Yes,” she said as she deflated. “But I don’t remember exactly which house we were in.”

“You have to try,” Jane said, as if it were totally obvious.

She was on the cusp of picking a place to set the helicopter down when several plinks rattled off the outside of the copter. Jane banked hard to her right and made for the edge of town. Two more clangs—gunfire she realized—followed.

“They're shooting at us?” Victoria’s question was rhetorical.

They re-crossed the Mississippi and banked for a landing. She watched a huge dust storm far across the flat Missouri farmland for the few moments she faced that direction. Soon they touched down in the treeline across the river from Cairo. Jane explained the helicopter would be hidden from trigger-happy townsfolk, but would be close enough they could get back before the town itself collapsed.

“We’re walking?”

“No, we’re running,” Jane said while unhooking herself from the controls and radio equipment. In moments they both stood outside the damaged sliding door. With a conspiratorial grin, Jane removed a small panel which revealed a storage space inside the hull. She pulled out two black rifles and several magazines each. Victoria spied another rifle she left behind. It was much larger.

“That’s my baby,” Jane said with the pride of any new mother. “But she’s too heavy to carry so far.”

Then, pointing at the rifle she’d given to Victoria, she continued. “You aren’t going to shoot me with that, are you?” Her smile was soft, but her eyes were rocks.

“No. I can’t say I trust you, but right now we both want the same thing. To save Grandma from that wall of zombies.”

Jane handed her the magazines. “Keep these handy. We’re going to need them.” She took off at a jog.

Victoria, looking at the unlocked helicopter, spoke as she ran to catch up. “Aren’t you worried someone is going to steal your ride?”

“Eh, what are the odds of the finder being able to fly a helicopter? We’ll be fine.”

Victoria wasn’t sure. “We’ll be fine” was code for “I have no idea.” But there was no other choice. At least they weren’t bullet magnets on the ground.

Things became more chaotic as they crossed the fields on the Missouri side of the river and reached the narrow, two-lane bridge which linked their side with Illinois. Several people ran down the middle of the bridge—away from town. Women and children, mostly. The children were ushered with yells and screams to keep moving. Often they were crying madly—young and old kids.

Crossing the old bridge gave them a look below. The brown river was choked with barges. There were more than she could count. It was almost possible to walk from one side of the great river to the other...they were piled up that badly. Cairo had taken capturing the runaways to a whole new level.

A giant plane came in over the bridge low, and slow. She recognized it from their many earlier encounters. A V-22 Osprey. It swooped in above the town then tilted its wings as it descended—changing from plane mode to helicopter mode. It went behind some trees in the foreground of her view, so she didn’t know where it went down. She assumed it was part of the evacuation effort and was glad to see it.

Distracted by the plane, that’s when she saw a group of people walking a ramp onto a single barge near the middle of the river. It was hooked to a lone towboat, like they were preparing to depart. The people on the move appeared to be elderly, and that was all she needed.

“There! Those people. We have to check that out.”

Jane, when she saw where she was looking, held out her rifle so she could look through the scope. After a moment’s worry that the other woman was going to shoot down at the people, she realized what she was doing and used her own scope in the same fashion. Sure enough, they were elderly.

“Why are they walking to that boat?” Jane asked.

“I don’t know. But if they're as old as I think they are, we have to assume Grandma is down there somewhere. And we have to hurry!” The people were close to their getaway boat, and no one appeared to be following them. They’d walked across several adjoining barges which were lashed together—she had experience jumping over such boats—and it wouldn’t take them long to get inside the last one.

“All right. It’s worth a look.”

Dang right, it is.

3

They had no incidents getting over the long bridge, past a group of men organizing a roadblock at the far end, or getting down to the floating parking lot of barges. The one they sought was still moored to the others as they approached. They had weapons drawn.

“What are we going to do if there are guards?”

“What makes you think they’ll have guards?” Jane asked, with apparent skepticism.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that every time I walk into one of these situations, someone points a gun in my face? Ringing any bells?”

“That was one time,” Jane said with an attempt to lighten the mood.

Victoria was angry but kept it inside. The rifle in her hands was her insurance card, this time.

“After you,” she motioned to Jane.

The barge was one of the big ones. About two hundred feet long and fifty across. It was covered by a long series of metallic toppers, so she couldn’t see what was inside the hold. The elderly people had gone in on one side, where there were steps. On the far end, the barge had some tall antennas and a large satellite dish sitting on the open deck. That was curious enough to warrant checking out the boat, as no other barge she’d seen had such accoutrements.

Jane didn’t hesitate, though she gripped her rifle tightly, and held it to her face as she moved closer to the steps to go down into the hold.

Victoria studied the towboat at the other end. The windows of the bridge wrapped all the way around the superstructure of that ship, so the captain could see the entire river, but she couldn’t tell if anyone was watching them from inside.

I’m sure this is all just a friendly checkup.

The stairs down were made of fresh wood like they’d been built for this one thing. She followed Jane, who’d gone the ten or so feet to the bottom. She stepped off so Victoria could stand next to her.

The people she’d seen earlier stood nearby as a group. They looked scared and tired. One or two had taken seats against the metal wall of the hull. The lighting was dim, but white LED lights lined the floor everywhere she looked.

When they got close to them, they lowered their rifles.

And old man met them as they neared. “We surrender.” Some chuckles followed from the others. If Liam were here, he’d criticize them for surrendering. He’d want them all to be armed, so two girls wouldn’t have the drop on them.

“Sorry, what is this place?”

“Can’t you see? It’s a hospital?” the old man answered.

Victoria looked again. She’d been so focused on the threat posed by the unarmed people; she didn’t see the rest of the interior. It was two hundred linear feet of beds. Each bed had a light hanging down from above it, though only a few beds had patients in them.

She and Jane walked around.

“It really is a hospital,” Jane agreed.

They both stared in wonder. Having a hospital out on the river meant it could go anywhere to provide services. It would be a great asset to anyone fighting against the zombies who, so far, didn’t have the ability to swim and board ships like this one.

“Who’s in charge?” There were no nurses or doctors to answer Jane’s query. Just some sleeping patients and the group of newcomers. “And how did you know to come here?” Jane continued.

Victoria looked back, waiting for the answer.

“A young woman told us to get over here straight away. She said this was part of the official evacuation effort.”

“All of you?” Victoria probed.

The others nodded.

She walked tentatively into the area of beds. There were probably ten long rows of them. The first patient she could find was also an elderly woman. Not Grandma. That got her running. Out of all the beds, maybe ten percent had people in them. The cool hull seemed to help with temperature, but it was still humid—most patients were sweating as they lay there.

But, more troubling, was the fact they were all attached to wires and a type of harness over their heads. They seemed to be out of it.

When she’d run up and down all the rows, she was satisfied Grandma was not among them. She didn’t know if she was happy or sad at the realization. These people had to be safer than those in danger of being overrun by the horde.

She returned to Jane with a question on her face.

“I don’t know what this is. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Victoria, pointing over her shoulder, replied, “Actually, I’ve seen something like it. I, uh...” Her attention was stolen by movement at the front of the barge.

A black drone had floated down the stairs and hovered silently, out of the way. Another came in behind it. And a third.

“Friends of yours?” she asked Jane.

The angular machines hovered at the base of the steps, as if waiting for orders.

“Nope. I have no friends,” she replied with finality.

Chapter 15: Fighting Retreat

Marty tried to get out of her chair, but her back was, as Liam would say, toast. She sat in the darkness of the cozy old home with her kinda-sorta captor. Debbie didn’t say she was a prisoner, but she wouldn’t help Marty up so she could leave. It was a request she refused over and over, until finally she went into the other room, pulled some bedding and a pillow into the family room, and went to sleep at Marty’s feet. Now, even if she could pop out of her chair with the help of magic, she wouldn’t be able to step over or around Debbie without rousing her.

The saddest part was the girl seemed to be deeply asleep—even the distinct whining of a tank barreling through the neighborhood didn’t bring her around. When it came by, Marty believed it had gone through the backyard, but as the night dragged on she doubted what she’d heard.

So, she did the only sensible thing for her situation.

“Al, you better talk to me when I fall asleep,” she whispered.

She woke with the sun high in the morning sky. Rays of sunshine raked the empty kitchen, reminding her of many pleasant years of cooking and baking in her home. Who owned this house before the horrible zombies came here? Was that person still alive, somewhere?

And Al? He never showed up, though she remembered many of her dreams from the night before. They were “normal” ones, though, not those induced by Al and his dream-within-a-dream routine. It wasn’t relief she felt, however, as now she needed him more than ever. She was alone—Liam and Victoria were still up the river on their boat—and the general had hinted things were going to get bad in the town. He didn’t say she should leave, but that was written between the lines.

At her feet, Debbie’s bedding was an explosive mess of sheets, pillows, and comforters all over the floor. It was too hot to need any of those for sleeping under, but she probably needed them to cushion herself on the hard floor. Whatever it was for, she wasn’t among the wreckage.

“Debbie?” she said cautiously. She needed the girl but wanted her to be gone, too.

No response.

She called louder to the same effect.

Time to do this myself.

In an act that immediately reminded her of that first day in her St. Louis living room, she cautiously rose to her feet, using the arms of the chair as her guides. Her rest the night before had helped her back, but not as much as it would have with proper sleep in a proper bed. Sleeping in a chair brought out new soreness in her body.

Once on her feet, she looked for her cane. Or, she thought, even that darned walker. But this was a home for youngsters. The only cane recently inside had been her own, and she managed to misplace it.

Pretending she was only 99, she grabbed the arm of the chair and moved to the wall. She wall-walked to the front door.

“Where will I go?” she said to the empty room, talking to herself exactly as she used to do back home. She giggled at the realization. She was, after all, still alive. For her, that was a thought worth celebrating.

“Who would have thought,” she mused, “that an old lady like me would be in a pickle like this. Looking for a walker when so many zombies are upon us.”

That sobered her.

The front door was flimsy wood and opened easily. With a few stumbles, she reached the edge of the front stoop so she could see the world outside.

It was worse than she feared. Because several lots had no houses sitting on them—the old town had been stripped of many over the years of decline—her view of the scene allowed her to see several streets over. People were running on her street, on the next street, as far as she could see streets further into town. All of them were heading to the south—away from the battle in the north.

In her yard, she saw a swath of destruction emerge from the side of the house—dual troughs of dirt had been torn from the thick grass. The cause of that mess sat in the lot across and down the street a few houses. One of the tanks from the levee had driven there, apparently through her backyard, and it came to a rest under the impressive canopy of a towering old tree.

Two streets over she happened to glimpse Debbie walking between a pair of hobbling elderly women. Everyone else was going south, but her direction was against the grain—toward her stoop.

It gave her a moment to ask what could drive the young girl to collect more elderly. It was almost as if she was doing a service project of some kind.

“Save the elderly people from the zombies,” she chuckled. “Well, not this old bird.”

With great care, she stepped out onto the front walkway and made her way to the street. Once there, she knew she would get assistance. It embarrassed her to do it, but almost no one would pass an elderly woman swaying in the middle of the roadway.

To her surprise, many people did pass her with not so much as a look.

Oh, heavens me. Things are bad.

But, with great relief, she felt someone grab her arm.

When she looked at her helper, she thought it was just about the last person in the world she expected.

2

“General! What are you doing here?”

“I’m planning,” he said curtly.

With the whole town running in terror, and the leader of its defenses on her elbow, she didn’t dare bring up her trivial problems.

“Actually, this is called a fighting retreat, Ms. Peters. Elsa bombed me yesterday so I had to move my vehicles into the town. We've been fighting with spears at the ditch all night. Now I have my people in a line behind us, trying to go door to door to evacuate what we can before the zombies catch us.” As if to emphasize that line, he shoved her to go faster—beyond her comfort zone.

It struck her that this might be where her story ends. After a few paces of fast-walking, she stopped him.

“General, I’m not your concern. Leave me here. Protect these other people.” She pointed back to Debbie, who was at that moment walking over the lawn to the house she just left. “That girl helped me get out. She's trying to help others escape. She needs your help, more than I do.”

He looked back, but only for a moment.

“You aren’t going to understand this. I’m not sure I do. But Elsa wanted you dead. There's a reason for that. Whatever that reason is, that makes me inclined to refuse her wish and save you myself.” His eyes conveyed the seriousness of that statement. “Now are you going to walk with me, or not?”

She’d lived a long and happy life. Though she admired his sentiment and shared his desire to deny that woman anything, she couldn’t be responsible for dragging him down while trying to take care of a spent soul like her. She did her best attempt to pull herself free, intent on doing a movie-quality evasion of him. Of course, she came nowhere near pulling it off.

“Leave me be.”

His response was rapid and decisive.

Before she knew what was happening, she was in his arms.

“Oh! No. Put me down, please.” Her words carried no weight. They were as light as she was in the strong arms of the military man.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry. I was taught to always honor my elders, and I admit this is borderline disrespect. But we’re in danger of losing the whole town because of that woman’s actions, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk away and leave you to die when I could easily save you.”

Marty didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t make him put her down, even if she wanted to get violent—which was never going to happen. As with a sizable portion of her later life, she was now being swept up in events, and totally dependent on another human being for her care.

Al, why didn’t you answer me?

In those moments she reflected on Al’s absence. Was he giving her a message? Was it up to her what she did next? That seemed right. He could have given her a destination, and she would have done anything in her power to get there. But he didn’t work like that. The being masquerading as her late husband liked to be mysterious. She laughed a little at the more-than-obvious thought.

So where would a mysterious being want her to go? Liam would be looking for her. She was sure of that.

I didn’t leave him a note!

The realization stunned her, but the more she thought about it—

I still don’t know where I’m going.

“Dear Liam, I left the house in the arms of a general. Points unknown. Best wishes. Grandma.” That thought was as accurate a note as she could leave at the moment.

The general wouldn’t take her back to that house, even if she begged.

“I can hear them, general,” she said softly. The yelps of the zombies carried on the air.

“Marty, listen to me. The lines are about gone. The town is going down. I’m going to leave you somewhere safe, but you have to trust me. I’m going to get you out of here, and then we can see how you and Elsa fit together. Deal?”

“Are you giving me a choice?”

“No.”

“Well, then. Carry on.”

She would be on the lookout for her escape. Wherever he was going to put her, it would not be safe. And worse, it would endanger others. She’d spent too long already allowing people to fight for her, and die for her. Liam, especially. She was as proud of him now as she was ashamed at her own selfishness through all this bother.

It wouldn’t be suicide to let myself get caught, would it? Not if I tried, for a little while, to escape them.

Her mind was aflutter with competing life directives when she finally saw what the general was going to do with her.

Chapter 16: Chloe

John knew how it would end. Always did, once he saw the zombies coming over the interstate. And every death was the result of Elsa—and whatever group she worked for—and her abandonment of these people. Deep down he wanted to walk away from this fight so he could prepare for the next one, but, alas, that wasn’t going to happen.

He'd gotten Ms. Peters to a safe spot. One victory among a string of fighting defeats.

“Sir, everyone who’s getting out is behind us.”

“And we have nowhere to go,” he replied.

“Sir?”

There were two bridges on the southern tip of the peninsula on which the town of Cairo had been settled. Today it was essentially an island, since the ditch linked the two rivers on the north side. It had been filled with bodies, so maybe that disqualified it from being an island. A strange thought given the gravity of the situation.

There were hundreds of barges floating around the town, as part of the recovery efforts of the past several weeks. He could have jumped any one of those, cut it loose, and gotten his men out. But not the equipment. That’s why he’d made every effort to get his surviving tanks, Humvees, and Bradley’s to the southernmost bridges. But now that he was there…

“The mayor did us one last favor,” he said with derision.

While they were busy fighting zombies hand-to-hand up in the north, the mayor and some of his public works lackeys had been here, in the south, clogging up the bridges with every vehicle they could find. Somehow they’d even managed to wedge a truck-sized shipping container on the Missouri bridge.

“We can just climb over that garbage, sir,” the civilian man said.

John didn’t reply. They’d spent the morning fighting a delaying action block after block in the long, narrow town, and he assumed this was going to be where he rides off into the sunset after a job well-done. He'd even gotten lucky and found Marty wandering about. But their escape was in jeopardy.

The mayor had made sure he couldn’t get his heavy equipment out of the town. He couldn’t say for certain the old man knew what he was doing—maybe he got a call from Elsa. The end result was the same: the mayor screwed him over.

There were barges out on the water with cranes attached—the port area had two he knew about—and with unlimited time he could have this bridge cleared using those cranes. But he had minutes, not hours.

He reached into his Humvee, searching for a miracle. “This is Warfighter actual.” He called to his aid Tom using the designation he'd written on the piece of paper. "Dunkirk, how copy?”

Nothing but static.

He’d tried to keep his radio chatter to a minimum because Elsa was always listening, but this was important. The surveillance drones did slow circles over Cairo, reminding him of the wider world and his lack of a role in it.

“Tom, dammit, are you there?”

He’d sent his assistant out the previous day, and he feared he’d come to harm. If he’d come through it might have made this whole fiasco more palatable. As it was, he was going to have to abandon all his equipment to the zombies. Maybe someday he could come back and collect it…

That gave him his out.

As civilians streamed onto the Kentucky bridge, he gathered the remnants of his unit. He had the two Abrams, four remaining Humvees, a mostly-empty supply truck, and a rabble of civilian cars. Both Bradley’s had been lost—one by the JDAM, the other due to a maintenance failure. It made him laugh to think he was probably still the most powerful man for hundreds of miles. The two tanks would make him invincible in a world where everyone used spears.

“Mount up. We’re going to the most southern tip. We’ll swim if we have to, but I’m not abandoning these tanks until I have no other choice.”

Some of the men looked at the bridge—he knew they were considering their own odds. But to their credit, everyone followed him into a little park that sat on the southern tip of the fake island. The buildings of the town faded away, and the last few hundred yards south of the bridges was a pleasant grassy parkland. They were outside the levee system, so the ground sat very near the water level. Hundreds of barges rode the water in every direction.

He shut off the Humvee and sat for a moment staring out at the water. This was the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. The Mississippi came in from his right, linking with the other waterway in a large V. One jump and he could float in perfect safety all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

That made him laugh. There would be no such easy escape.

He got out of his truck, intending to explain his reasoning at what had to look like a desperation play, but an Osprey swept in from just above the Missouri-side bridge, it rumbled almost directly over his position, then flew north in what could only be described as a landing maneuver. His instinct said it was Elsa coming in to gloat.

He thought through all the possibilities of the day. Fight or flight time. The noontime sun smacked down on him—hastening the need for action.

“Change of plan, gentlemen. I need volunteers for a mission. We’re going back into town.”

“I’ll go,” a soldier said without any hesitation.

Chloe. You wonderful woman.

2

Chloe explained how she’d just left the port area—and her makeshift spear factory—because zombies came a’ knockin’. When a tank drove by she figured that was the last hurrah. Her people helped get civilians over the Kentucky bridge, but she decided to throw her fate in with the general.

“I’m glad you made it.” Then, looking at the rest of his men, he noticed there was an almost even mix of civilians and formal military. Perhaps the transition was already taking place. The order of the old military was giving way to a citizen army. “I’m glad you all made it here,” he said loudly.

“I have one more mission, then we’re going to jump in that water,” he pointed behind him, “and swim to safety.”

That brightened everyone up.

“I need to go back into town. I think the woman who screwed us all was on that plane. I’d like some payback, wouldn’t you?”

He got some cheers, but he knew they were being polite. After fighting all day and all night, no one—not even him—truly wanted to go back in. The only reason they weren’t fighting them at that moment was that so many people refused to leave their homes, even when faced with the black tide, that the zombies were delayed by those holdouts. If anyone was looking at the scene from above, they would see rings of zombie surrounding homes. Donuts of death on a final platter of humanity.

But that grisly image encouraged him that he wasn’t asking his men and women to commit suicide.

In a few minutes, he had his fighting force. A dozen volunteers jumped on each of the tanks, spears and guns at the ready. The Humvees collectively had about a thousand rounds of ammo left, but they could also run over stragglers if need be. A few brave souls got in those trucks to help the drivers.

The remainder of his men were given the task of guarding their piece of the park. At the very least he needed some free space so his troopers could evacuate their tanks and jump in the water. Some of the civilians were already knee-deep at the water's edge.

It didn’t take long to get back into the town. A few humans ran for their lives, always to the south. In just a couple blocks they found the zombies. Not every zombie had waited to see what was inside the juicy homes—they kept moving after the prey they saw on foot.

“Don’t waste ammo. Fire only if the zombies are a threat. Alpha-1 and -2 run over what you can.”

Given their license to kill, the tank drivers made every effort to hit the zombies in the streets. It resulted in horrific smears on the pavement, which he dutifully avoided, but it had to be done. Chloe, sitting in the passenger seat next to him, made a fake retching sound.

“It’s just awful,” she said to herself.

“This whole thing is awful.” He looked over to her while he drove. “I’ll never be able to thank you for what you did to help the defenses here. Your spears kept us in the game for almost twelve full hours through the dead of night. Probably saved a lot of lives in the evacuation, too. Can you imagine all this happening in the dark?”

“No problem, sir. I heard how you used car headlights up there. That saved lives, too,” she insisted. “My dad was Army. Only a Colonel, mind you, but I guess I felt if I could do right by a general, I could do right by him.”

He looked back at the road. The two tanks were aggressively running down zombies, though the road was thick with them as they progressed into the main part of town. “I guarantee you he would be proud of you.”

“Yeah, I guess. We’re not going to make it, are we?”

“Here? I’m not planning on getting us killed—”

“No. I mean anywhere. These zombies are...endless.”

“If we can get somewhere with high walls, and with no crazy bitch administrator running it, we might have a chance.”

“I thought this place was it, you know? We had a good plan.”

“I did, too, Chloe. But there will be other opportunities. That’s what this little trip is all about. I want to put a stop to the person who brought us down. Then we’ll be on our way.”

“If you point me to the person who did all this, I’ll kill them myself,” she said coldly.

He turned to her again, just for a second. The tone of her voice made him consider whether her father would be proud of what she'd become, after all. His own revenge was one thing—a known quantity—but he had second thoughts about involving other people in his final quest. If he got this young woman killed while engaged in something that he didn’t really need to do…

I need to do this. For her, and for me.

Whatever else happened, he needed to stop Elsa. Chloe’s dad would agree. That woman had turned out to be a bigger threat to their personal safety than the zombies. She was one person. If he couldn’t stop the endless rain of zombies, he could at least remove that one threat so she couldn’t do this all again somewhere else.

He would be doing the world a great service, even if it cost Chloe her life. Or his own.

This has to happen.

3

John drove around a corner and saw the big bird had landed in one of the large empty lots of the neighborhood where he’d recently found Marty.

“What are the odds of that?” he asked rhetorically.

Chloe answered. “What’s that, sir?”

“Oh, there’s more going on than I can explain right now. This can’t be coincidence Elsa would come to this street. She once tried to kill a good friend of mine who lived nearby.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK. She’s alive and safe. But this plane has to be here because she wanted to finish the job.”

The Osprey’s back ramp was down. The big props were locked in the hover position, and the rotors continued to spin, but it was unquestionably waiting—not taking off. A few Marines fanned out on the ramp, and they picked off zombies as they got close. He wondered if they knew what was trickling down through the town to the north of them.

“Hold here!” John shouted into his radio. He didn’t know how to contact the Marines. He was outside his own chain of command at the moment.

“I’ll flag them down, sir.”

Before he could say anything, she hopped out of the armored truck and ran toward the Osprey with her arms up. Twice on the march in she had to use her spear to put down zombies. One was a huge man dressed as a firefighter. Her first strike was ineffective, but she kept her cool and got in a second killing strike before it could harm her.

“Your dad truly would be proud of you,” he said to the windshield.

In sixty seconds she’d established contact, and waved his group in.

“Chloe, I’m going to make a special medal for you,” he said when he ran up the ramp to meet her. He saluted the Marines.

They didn’t salute him.

You're dressed like a bum!

He’d forgotten what he must look like. His white T-shirt in no way designated him as a leader. Since he’d been pulled out of the ditch, he’d gotten his white shirt completely filthy with mud, sweat, and blood—some of it his own, he was sorry to admit, from where he injured himself on that fall. He’d have to have that looked at if he lived long enough.

“I’m Major General John Jasper,” he shouted in the man's ear. “Though I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not really with the U.S. Army anymore.”

The Marines gave no ground.

“It’s true. We follow this man because he kept us alive. You had to have seen the zombies on our north wall when you came in? He helped us hold them out there overnight. Now we’re trying to evac the town.”

John willed her to ask about Elsa, but she didn’t bring it up.

“Isn’t that why you’re here,” John added.

One of the Marines made a decision to talk. He pulled them off the ramp, away from the noisy rotors. The two others kept watch from the ramp, though now they had help from two tanks and four Humvees. If they relaxed, John couldn’t tell.

“We report to Lt. Col. Brandyweis, U.S.M.C. We are based here in Cairo, under a Major General Jasper.” He looked at him like he was a bum. “But we’re here to collect a person of interest. Our rescue mission is for her.”

“You mean Elsa Cantwell?”

“No, sir. I’m under orders, sir, so I won’t give out her name.” The Marine was annoyed. John had known enough of them to know when they felt they’d let themselves down. He managed to coax a critical piece of information from him, and he knew it.

“Son, this is important. Elsa Cantwell is responsible for blowing this town to Hell. I’m going to arrest her. If you know where she is, you’d be the hero, here.”

Though it was a reasonable request, the Marine didn’t bite.

He tried a different line of questioning.

“We’re also looking for a Ms. Marty Peters. She was reported living on this street.”

The Marine looked at him stiffly, evidently uncomfortable dealing with a man who could be his boss, but who looked like a store clerk. John saw a glint of recognition in his eyes.

He nodded, then walked away with Chloe in tow.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but they came for a woman who lives on this street. In fact, I saw her come out of that house, right over there.”

He guided her as he walked.

Three Marines and his own men watched as he approached the house.

The crack of gunfire from one of the Marines reminded him his time was running out.

Danger close.

Zombies were everywhere on the streets to the north.

Chapter 17: Debbie's Double Barrel

“You aren’t going to believe this, but you got a call on my secure phone.” Colonel Brandyweis handed him a smartphone.

“Who is it?” Liam asked with awe.

“They won’t say. But they know everything about where we are, who I am, and who you are. They were very persuasive.” He laughed.

“Here, you’ll need this.” He handed Liam a headset that was plugged into his phone. “So you can hear her over the prop noise.”

They were talking loudly inside the Osprey, but he agreed that having headphones and a mic would make a phone call much more practical. And private.

The phone displayed “unknown caller” on the screen.

“Uh, hello?”

“Hello, Liam. Thanks for taking my call.”

“I didn’t have much choice. Who is this?” The voice was feminine but filtered to hide her identity. It was the same distorted voice he'd heard days earlier in the quarry.

“I’m a friend. Listen. I know where you’re going. You have to get them to turn around. You can’t go to...that town. It's overrun.”

He felt it in the pit of his stomach. The Polar Bears had hinted that Cairo was in imminent danger, but he wouldn’t believe it until he saw it. It felt childish to say it that way, but he certainly wasn’t going to turn around because some voice on the phone asked him not to.

“I can tell you’re thinking if I’m telling the truth. I assure you, I’m watching a video feed of more zombies than I can count going over the line of water north of town. The zombies are breaking through.”

“Why are you calling me? What difference would it make if I went there? If the zombies have the town, we’ll just go somewhere else. I have to get my Grandma.”

“And it has nothing to do with your girlfriend?”

“How do you know about her? Who the hell is this?” His inner child came out for some odd reason. “I’ll hang up this phone if you don’t tell me!”

“I...I can’t tell you. This call is secure, or so I’m told, but I can’t risk my whole operation...”

“Well, we’re in trouble then. I’m not listening to you just because you said so.”

The line was silent for a long time. So long that he had to ask if anyone was still there.

He was answered by a series of clicks, then the sound of a ringing phone on the other end.

A woman answered.

“Who is this?” was the first thing out of her mouth. Liam recognized the voice immediately.

“Mom?”

“Liam? Is it you?”

“Yeah, Mom. It’s me. How did you call me? I’m not even—”

“Call you? No, you called me.”

“Mom, I knew it was you. You don’t have to pretend.”

Lana seemed to recover her wits. Her voice also gathered strength and speed.

“Liam, where are you? I’ve been worried sick since you’ve left. I've, uh, gone looking for you. I'm parked outside H's house, but it's on fire. Do you know about this?”

He began to doubt it was his mom earlier. She was very convincing that she was as surprised as he was at their fortuitous connection.

“I ran from downtown to Forest Park, but I didn’t find Victoria. I, um, saw that fire, too. Not long ago. I’m on a plane heading back to where I left Grandma. I think Victoria is there.”

He didn’t want to give away where he was going. The conspiracy-minded Polar Bears had at least done that for him.

“No! You can’t go there. It’s falling apart down there.”

“That’s what she said. Before you came on the line. I’m going down there, Mom. Don’t try to stop me. I have to know if they're OK. After that...I don’t care.”

“Dammit, Liam, why do you keep running away from me? Give me some time, maybe I can get some help to you.”

“If it's as bad as you say, I can’t wait. We're already on our way. I’m in good hands.”

“Liam please—” his mom pleaded. She was cut off, mid-sentence.

“Hi Liam, this is Grandma Rose.”

He sat in stunned silence.

“Are you there?”

Lana heard her mother-in-law. “Rose. What are you doing?” She sounded more incredulous than happy to hear her.

“Lana, if I remained silent while my own grandson threw his life away you would never forgive me.”

“Yes, but—”

“Don’t worry about that. So they’ll know where I am.”

“Grandma. Is it really you? What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you. You have to get away from Cairo. A very bad woman made sure every zombie from Chicago and Indianapolis found their way to that tiny town—and they are there at this moment. There’ll be hell to pay.”

“I...I know. But Grandma Marty is there. My girlfriend is there.”

“Liam, listen to your Grandma. Marty wouldn’t want you to risk your life for her.”

“Victoria wouldn’t either. We all say that to protect each other from harm. That’s why I have to get them.”

“Liam, hang on a second,” Rose requested. A series of clicks and chirps took over the line.

After a few moments, he called out, “Hello?”

No response.

“Hello?” he called louder, as if that would help.

Another click and he heard his mom’s voice at the very end of a word like she’d been talking on another line.

Rose spoke to him. “Liam, listen. This is very important. I have an agent in Cairo that has eyes on Marty. She’s going to get out. Do you hear me? She's going to get out. You don’t have to go there. Your mother and I agree on this. We need you to stay clear.”

“What about Victoria? The Marines said she has a chip in her. A tracking chip. She’s down there. I’m not going to leave her to die.”

Lana responded. “Liam, I love Victoria. She can take care of herself. I need to protect you from going into a horde of zombies. You know that, right? It’s already too late.”

“I know that, Mom. But I’m going. Call me in a few hours and I’ll tell you if I survived.”

He hung up the phone. The inner child screamed for him to do it, but he mostly did it because he didn’t want to be talked out of it. There would never be enough of a threat to get him to avoid rescuing the girl he loved.

It was nice to know Grandma would be safe.

2

The Osprey came in over the town low enough he could see the disaster unfolding everywhere on the ditch line. The dead had already crossed using the bodies of those stacked in the water as they were cut down by the defenders. When he last saw the ditch, he could imagine such a thing happening, but it seemed beyond the realm of possibility. Now, having seen it done, it looked pretty simple.

The plane swung wide around the town, looped up north over the interstate, then made another tight loop over the center of town, giving he and Brandyweis time to study the situation.

“The buildings look intact. The zombies are just now getting over that levee.” He pointed down to the defenders of the town. A line of citizens stood at the top of the big levee, and jousted with the advanced line of zombies as they came up the hill. But there were huge gaps in the defensive line, and some of the zombies were already on the backside of the levee.

“Where's your Grandma’s house?”

Liam looked down like he was looking at a map. He identified the central building he and Victoria had visited on the day he woke up and walked the few blocks back to where he thought he remembered the house. He pointed to a large field.

“I think if you land there I can walk you in. It’s on that street; I’m pretty sure.” Being above the trees made it difficult to see all the homes nestled under the leaves, but it was his best guess.

Brandyweis ordered the pilot to fly the Osprey south over the Missouri bridge, declaring he wanted to sweep the southern tip of the peninsula. A couple of Abrams tanks sat on a parking lot near the meeting point of the two rivers. Lots of people and a few other vehicles were close by, but he didn’t see any zombies.

"Looks like they've got an evacuation plan. That's good," Brandyweis said. “Take your seat. We’ll touchdown where you said. We know what we're dealing with. We have to be quick.”

Liam nodded. He was grateful the man had trusted him enough to travel all this way on the word of a kid. That’s what he felt, anyway. Somehow he was lucky enough to get rescued by Marines, then airlifted by Marines, all to rescue his family. Not many people would have the same backup.

As soon as he felt the plane touch down, he was out of his seat. Brandyweis beat him to the back door. By the time it was down, they were both on the run.

“It’s there. That’s it!”

The yard where he playfully rolled with Victoria was just ahead. The yard, however, had been destroyed. He’d spent enough time with tanks to recognize the destruction one of them could do to the landscape. It had ripped through the backyard—flattening several of the small trees he’d searched for spears—and turned so it could go into the next yard and cross the street. Another swath of destruction began a few houses down, where it went back into the grass.

They ran up to the walkway, but the Marine halted him.

“Liam, we don’t know what’s inside. Let me make sure it’s clear before you go in? OK?”

He immediately felt naked. He was unarmed.

“Can I have a weapon?”

He handed him a big knife. “This is all I have, besides Mike-Sixteen here.” He nodded down to his rifle.

“Thanks.” It wasn't a shiny rifle, but at least it wouldn't cost as much when he inevitably lost it.

When they reached the door, Brandyweis turned to him. “For what it’s worth, I respect what you’re doing. Saving your Grandma is very noble.”

“I’m here for two people,” he answered. He was proud the military man thought so highly of him, but he’d had plenty of time to think things through on the plane. His mom and Grandma Rose both warned him against showing up here, though they were wrong—the town hadn’t yet fallen. But they were right, he was ashamed to admit, that it wasn’t really a smart play to come all this way for Grandma. Not if they knew she was safe already. Instead, his real reason for risking his life was Victoria. And, if he knew Victoria at all, the reason she was back in Cairo without him had to be because she was here for Grandma, as well.

Find Grandma. Find Victoria.

Brandyweis kicked the front door in. The distressed wooden frame gave way on the first attempt.

Grandma wasn’t in the front room. It was a long shot that she’d be in the exact spot where he’d last seen her. The floor was covered with bedding and pillows. Like a mouse had been hoarding materials for its home.

“Dang it; nothing is ever easy. I really hoped she’d be here,” Liam said with frustration.

“Don’t sweat it, how far could a 104-year-old woman go?” Brandyweis tried to be funny, but Liam couldn’t laugh. Not after the day he’d had, and how close he’d come to finding her. “I’m sure she’s—”

It was the last thing the man ever said.

A crazy-looking girl in the hallway had just used her shotgun to remove his head.

3

Liam was stunned. He saw the girl. Saw the shotgun. Saw what it did. Naturally, he knew the threat to himself. But he couldn’t move.

An image of Yoga Girl flashed across his memory. Yep, he was frozen in inaction just like the very first encounter he’d had with a zombie.

The girl came out of the darkened hallway, and Liam recognized her—sort of. Like someone he remembered by sight from his kindergarten class.

“Liam!” the girl shouted with relief. “It’s you! I thought you two were zombies. I mean you broke open the door, and, like, came inside.”

He couldn’t move. Or talk. Or think, he discovered.

“Liam? It’s me. Debbie.” She was much too happy for what had just happened. He managed to turn his head to see the crumpled body next to his feet. The gun was right there, too.

“Like, that was a close one, huh?” She pointed the shotgun to Brandyweis.

“He wasn’t a zombie,” Liam said in a low voice, but with fiery anger.

“Oh, I’m sure he was. Look at him. He’s, like, gooey, and stuff.”

He wanted to reach out and wring her neck, but he still couldn’t move a muscle. The ringing in his ears reminded him, over and over, how close he’d just come to death. And he’d lost a friend.

Then, just as he was getting his muscles to respond, he saw two people walk out from the rooms at the back of the hall. They were very old…

“Liam. Before you complain, I, like, did try to get your grandma. I had her right here, in fact.” She pointed to the recliner chair. “But I got greedy. I, um, like found two more outside and was bringing them here when your grandma walked away. She escaped.”

“What...what are you talking about?” His voice was quaking. The fear was still riding high.

“Your grandma. I had her. I, like, kept her safe, and stuff. You know, just like you did.” She pointed to the other two elderly women. “See, I keep them safe like you showed me.”

“I showed you?” He was absolutely sure he’d never interacted with her.

“Oh yeah, I heard the story of how you got your Grandma out of the city when the zombies first came here, then, like, from that military camp in your bicycle, and how you rescued her from that terrible zombie factory downtown. Then, like, you got her into the plane.” She smiled widely. “Liam, you’re my hero. That’s why I’m, like, mimicking you.”

The moment overcame him, he wanted to let out a great sob, which was how he felt inside, but instead he let out a deep roar of a laugh.

Debbie was taken aback. “What’s wrong, Liam. Did I do something wrong? I, like, know your girlfriend isn’t here. I’m sorry. Is that why you’re mad?”

“Is that why I’m mad?” he said with incredulity. “You mean you have no idea?” He pointed down. “You just—like—shot a good man. You don’t seem to care. And capturing little old ladies? What the hell is it you think I do out there?”

It didn’t affect her in the way he expected. She didn’t react with anger.

“Liam. You have it all wrong. I’m doing this to save them. Just. Like. You.” She giggled like a hyena. “You’ll see. I can show you,” she said excitedly, as if she just remembered her ability.

“What? I’m not going anywhere with you.” Part of him expected the other Marines to come charging in after their fallen leader, but there were only three of them besides the two pilots. There was so much gunfire already in the town, the shotgun blast would be one pop among hundreds. Outside, other gunfire kept getting closer.

“You have to. I have to show you. I want to make you proud of me.” Her shotgun pointed in multiple directions as she swung it around carelessly.

He had a dozen witty retorts, but the girl had something wrong with her. Clearly. The two ladies she’d “captured” looked terrified. He rolled his eyes.

Here we go again.

“All right. I’ll go with you. But only to help the two ladies you’ve got frightened to death.”

Somehow he’d taken on the role of protector for the elderly. And, paradoxically, this Debbie person had keyed in on that and made it out to be something evil. Instead of protecting the aged, she was endangering them. Somewhere along the way, he would have his chance to put an end to this.

They left the house out of the view of the Marines on the Osprey. Debbie was at least that smart. Or maybe it was dumb luck.

They headed west, toward the towering bridge that went across to Missouri. He’d crossed the very same a half hour before. Back when a character named Lt. Colonel Brandyweis still existed in the world.

Goodbye, sir.

Chapter 18: Secret Mission

John approached the house and stopped short of the front door. It had been kicked open, then shut again. The door jam was splintered.

He looked back to the Osprey and his unit. They were down the street, shooting random walking zombies in the area. One quick glance north toward the meat of the approaching zombie horde now snaking its way through the streets of the town and he calculated his odds of getting back, getting more men, then checking the house. There wasn’t enough time.

“Stick with me,” he said as he pushed through. Chloe followed, with one of her spears.

“Oh, God.” An Army officer lay upon the wooden floor, among several sheets and pillows. His leg twitched pitifully as John watched. The spray of blood on the wall and floor was evidence of the level of violence which had practically removed the officer’s head. He'd been shot within the last several minutes.

He rolled the man over so he could see his name tape. “Brandyweis. Marty had mentioned this man. He was involved in this, too, though I'm not sure how.”

He hovered around the dead body while Chloe searched the house. In a moment, she called out. “They left through the back door. They can’t be far,” she said with a drop in her voice.

“What is it?”

“Zombies, sir. Lots of them.”

Chloe walked back into the room. “Who shot him, sir?”

“I don’t know. This day just keeps getting stranger...”

His eyes fell upon the dead body. Was Brandyweis here to hurt Marty, or was he like him—trying to protect Ms. Peters from Elsa and her operatives. Maybe he was killed by a robber. Anything goes in anarchy.

“Sir, there a shit-ton of zombies outside. We need to get back to the world.” She opened the front door to reinforce the urgency.

He picked up the dead man’s rifle. No sense leaving it for the dead.

They ran outside, then, out of duty, he walked up to the Marines. A couple of young women—filthy with blood, and screaming they were still alive—ran straight into the back of the plane. A small contingent of survivors huddled inside. “Did you guys hear a gunshot from inside the house? Your man is dead. Brandyweis.”

Three guns were trained on him.

He put his hands up, as did Chloe.

“We didn’t kill him,” she stated loudly. “Someone used a shotgun to clip his head off.”

The Marines shared a look, then lowered their weapons a little. One resumed sniping nearby zombies. More were on the way.

If they were lying, there’d be no way to prove them wrong. There simply wasn’t time.

The senior Marine spoke up. “There was a boy with him. Was he dead, too?”

John turned to Chloe, who had searched the house. She shook her head.

“No, son. We saw no one else in the house, but the back door was opened like someone had just left.”

The Marine looked at the tanks and Humvees, then back at John.

“I guess you’re leading this goat rope now, uh, sir. What are your orders, general?”

Inwardly, John respected the Marines’ ability to roll with anything. A man in a white T-shirt walks up to them in the midst of a zombie overrun situation, and they calmly deferred to him as the most senior commander in the shitstorm. Of course, he could never utter complimentary words for a Marine in front of his own men.

They talked for a minute about radio frequencies, the situation in the streets around them, and the plan he hoped to execute down at the southern tip of the town. But his last order was the most important.

“Get this bird in the air. Get those civilians to safety,” he said while pointing to those in the back of the plane. He said it mainly to cover his own ass. There weren’t many townsfolk left alive, other than those who refused to leave their homes. But if the Marines saw any before liftoff, it would be good to authorize them to grab as many as possible. “And then I want you to head south to Wickliffe, Kentucky.” He pointed south. “It’s the next town down the river. That’s the rally point for what’s left.”

“Understood.”

“And Marine?”

“Sir?”

“I’m sorry about your CO.”

With a grim nod, he went back to the defense of the aircraft for a moment. He said something to his two teammates, then ran inside.

John ushered Chloe off the ramp, and toward his patrol.

“Listen,” he said just loud enough for her to hear him. “I have a special job for you. You’ve done some good work on our defenses, and I can only trust this to someone who understands the big picture. My command has been compromised, though I think any traitors would have left a long time ago.”

He stopped her midway between the tanks and the Osprey.

“In that tank is a dear friend of mine. She’s 104. Her name is Marty Peters.”

“The one you've been protecting,”

He nodded and motioned to the tank.

“If something should happen to me, I’m tasking you with keeping her alive. She is an enemy of my enemy, if that makes any sense to you.”

“Perfectly, sir. But, sir, what if something does happen to you? Where do you want her to go?”

She always goes right to the core of the problem.

“That dead man in there was looking for Ms. Peters. The woman who left me for dead tried to have Ms. Peters killed. I walked in on that attempt and put a stop to it. Now, I’m...ah, I guess you'd say marked, because of that. It may be better if I didn’t tell you where to take her. If I’m killed, your life will be in danger.”

He watched for her reaction.

“Disappear. I can do that.” She reached out her hand to shake it when a Blackhawk helicopter caught his eye gliding low near the Missouri bridge—out over the barges below that span. There had been no such helicopters in Cairo since he’d been there, which suggested the people inside were not his.

The back door of Marty’s house faced the Missouri bridge. Chloe said they’d run out the back door and had to have gone in that direction. They certainly didn’t go north, into the zombie horde.

“Sir, we’ve got to leave.”

The ramp of the Osprey had already folded up. A couple 50’s on the roofs of the Humvees rattled and pointed at the arriving wave of zombies. Two runners actually passed John and Chloe as they stood there, only to be put down by the service pistol of one of the Humvee drivers. He’d held his gun out his window, gangster style.

Everything is breaking down. And here I’m about to do something stupid.

“Chloe, go. Take care of Marty.”

“What about you?”

He looked to the nearby bridge, and the chopper floating next to it.

“I’ll catch up with you. Trust me!”

He knew what he had to do to protect his men, his equipment, the old lady in Alpha-1, and any future they might have after today.

He banged on Brandyweis’s rifle, then slung it over his shoulder. It was mostly to bolster himself for what he was about to do. He passed orders using the radio of the nearest Humvee, then ran.

The Osprey glided up and leaned south. His ground team spun around and tore off, though they’d only get as far as the southern point of land at the confluence of the rivers. Unless Tom showed up with his miracle, it looked like saving the vehicles was going to be out of his hands. He breathed lighter knowing his men and women would escape, even if they had to swim.

He silently thanked his people for not trying to follow him.

Elsa would expect me to roll in with my tanks and machine guns. She’ll never expect a lowly old general to sneak up on her.

Getting to the Missouri bridge was harder than it looked. The ground to the south and west of town was wide open and flat, which was perfect terrain to be seen by the fastest zombies devouring the rest of Cairo. Several times he had to line up his shots and put down runners as they approached him.

He breathed in deep heaves when he reached the rough shoreline next to the procession of barges floating in the Mississippi. The Blackhawk still drifted near where it had been, and now he could see ropes being tossed down from the open rear compartment.

There was no thought of taking things slow and reconnoitering the site from the safety of the woods. The zombies saw him on the open fields, and there were too many behind him.

Whatever was going to happen, he’d lost the element of surprise.

The helicopter seemed to settle over one of the outermost barges still attached to a small towboat. There was a primitive walkway over all the barges between the shore and that outer barge. He got to the top of the first ramp. He kicked the plank so he couldn't be followed by the zombies. There was about a five-foot differential any zombie would have to climb if they wanted to follow him. He'd prefer fifty feet, but it was better than zero.

Far ahead, a pair of young kids each escorted a hunched-over old lady. They walked the decks of the barges tethered together, but he guessed they were going to the same destination as him, under the helicopter. Like magic, they all moved toward the same spot.

“What the hell?” He ducked down behind some maritime equipment on the front of one of the barges.

The kids looked up at the helicopter, but went down, out of his sight.

He wanted to run toward the action, but a direct charge against a Blackhawk was folly.

He stayed low and moved in a different direction.

Chapter 19: Uptalk

The drones kept their station near the exit of the barge. Victoria and Jane had just enough time to chat with the small number of awake elderly in the boat before another disturbance drew everyone's attention to the stairs again.

Two sets of feet started down. She somewhat recognized the girl holding a senior citizen companion.

Victoria watched as Debbie reached the metal floor of the makeshift hospital barge. The old woman on her arm wasn’t Marty. She had mixed feelings. Wouldn't Grandma be in a boat full of people her age? But if they were collecting the elderly, wouldn't it be better she wasn't there?

A second couple came down the steps behind her, and her roller coaster emotions headed upward again. It wasn't her. A teenaged boy with sloppy hair helped the elderly woman to the base of the steps. She moved a step in that direction, then stopped when she confirmed who he was.

“Liam!”

He looked up at her, then made sure the two little old ladies helped each other stand, and finally ran to her.

They closed thirty or so feet of distance and were seemingly about to throw themselves into an embrace when Victoria pulled up short and pushed out her arm to him.

“Wait, Liam. Just wait.”

“What?”

“I, uh. Need a moment.”

She wanted to tell him she was infected, but with all her soul she wanted to experience the comfort of his arms. Though it had only been a couple days, it felt like they’d been separated for a lifetime. Now was the time to indulge in expressions of love and assurances such a time apart would never happen again.

But what if I’m infected?

Her mind was very confused at the lengthy chain of questions she now had for herself.

Was she infected? That was the foundation for all the rest. If she was infected, when did she get the virus? Or, more properly, did she already expose Liam to its effects. What if he was immune, like Marty? Then it would be OK to hug him.

We haven’t shared everything, but we’ve shared enough.

They’d breathed the same air. Shared the same food. Even kissed.

She had to hug him. Her body screamed for her to do it.

“I think...I think I’m infected,” she said with deep sadness. “I don’t want you to get it,” she tossed the words like a dead fish onto the cutting board.

Liam took some time to interpret her words and the emotions behind them. She saw his mind working by reading his face. The rest of the room could have been on fire, but her attention was on him.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure I’m actually infected. Hayes told me,” she said flatly.

“Hayes?” He looked around, finally noticing her traveling partner, Jane.

“What’s she doing here?”

“Hi,” Jane said, “I saved your girlfriend’s life, so you’re welcome.” She wasn’t mean about it, but wasn’t exactly friendly, either.

Liam’s head was on a swivel.

“He’s not here, Liam. Hayes.”

“Where'd he go?”

“He got out of the helicopter somewhere on the way. A big concrete factory.”

She noted he was unarmed. Debbie carried a double-barreled shotgun, though. It stoked her curiosity, but first, she had to resolve the present crisis.

“Liam, listen. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think we—Jane and Doug included—are being hunted.”

“I came here because you have a tracking device on you. Maybe, in you.” He pointed to her chest.

“Liam, I’m scared,” she said it quietly, hoping only he would hear.

“Me too. I have so much I want to tell you.”

“I do, too. But you can’t touch me.” She stepped back once, to emphasize her point. Her voice cracked at the final two words.

Liam stepped forward one step. “I don’t know what to say. You don’t look like a zombie,” he said with a smile.

“No, it’s not like that. Hayes said there are carriers of the disease who don’t know they have it. They go out and infect others...”

“Hayes,” he said angrily. “How did he find you? What's his deal?”

“I don’t know how to explain it. Hayes saved my life, the same as Jane did.”

She saw the dissension on his face.

“You can’t trust him. I don’t trust him. I don’t think you can possibly be infected. You’ve been with me...”

She assumed he meant to end that with “the whole time,” but both knew that wasn’t true. Even when they were together on their adventures, there were periods when they were separated. Like when she was shot.

He changed his line of reasoning. “Victoria. I love you. We’ve been together, uh, in close proximity, that if you had any sickness, I’m sure I would have caught it.” He winked at her.

She wanted to believe his words. But if he was wrong, she’d kill him just as surely as if she was a zombie.

“I can’t be certain. I would never want to risk your life. Not like this.”

Before she knew what was happening, he had rushed in and wrapped his arms around her. She melted into him with an emotional sob.

“Liam, no…”

“Silly girl,” he whispered, “where you go, I go. There’s no way you can be infected.”

“You can touch me, but we shouldn’t—”

He kissed her. She tasted the salt of her own tears, and she embraced him. In front of the sick in the beds, Jane, Debbie, and numerous drone operators sitting who-knows-where, she finally allowed herself to risk her feelings, and her life, with Liam.

Her belief that she was infected receded into an inconsequential corner of her mind. The incident with the zombie girl in the red dress was just a coincidence. Hayes was the liar he'd always been.

The rest of her brain embraced the soul of her Zombie Apocalypse partner.

Thank you, Liam, for accepting me.

2

“We’re in this together, and I don’t believe for a second you’re infected,” Liam assured her.

Debbie interrupted. “Excuse me, um, Liam. Hi, Victoria. Can you help me get these women to their beds?”

His face looked as confused as her own. “I don’t know,” he said in a whisper. Was she pointing the shotgun at Liam?

Debbie walked a few feet away, then turned back when she saw Liam hadn't moved. “Liam. Help me,” she said with a touch of anger.

“OK, right.” He smiled at Victoria, gripped her arms tightly as a reassurance, then walked off. He eyed her rifle with a deliberate glance.

The instant he was gone, Jane sidled up to her. “I can’t figure out what this place is supposed to be. There are no doctors or nurses.”

Victoria scanned the room—it was like the experiment back at Washington University in some ways—but she couldn’t solve it, either. Debbie guided Liam and the two women to the closest beds.

“We should go,” Jane whispered, almost in her ear, “while we still can.”

“Those drones could shoot us if they wanted us dead. I’ve seen them,” she whispered back.

“We have to try. I can’t...we can’t get trapped, like this.”

She looked at Jane anew. Her red hair had become messed up from her headphones, and windblown from the air whipping through their helicopter. Her face remained unemotional, even as she sounded scared. It was impossible to read her.

“Did you know this would happen? That we would get trapped?” Victoria had learned enough over the weeks to never underestimate anyone.

“No. You were supposed to take us to Marty, remember? Now we're in some laboratory from Hell.”

Victoria looked around. “It doesn't look that bad.”

Jane firmly gripped her arm. “Haven't you been paying attention? Someone wants us dead. They want Douglas and me to die—”

“Because of Duchesne.”

“Bah. That's the easy answer. Revenge. You've been part of this almost since the beginning. This can't be a coincidence. It just can't be.” She ran her hand through her sweaty hair, apparently not pretending at being worried. “Duchesne came for Marty. He could have killed us on the spot. You were there.”

The NIS agent had them dead to rights. That was true. But he left Hayes and Jane in what might be billed as an overly elaborate plan to kill them later. Why not just put bullets in their heads?

“And how is this girl involved?” she indicated Debbie, now helping settle in one of the old ladies. The woman wore a light green pantsuit, reminding her of Grandma Marty when they'd first met. She seemed docile in the face of so many guns.

Liam's charge, perhaps because he had no gun, was much more vocal. She yelled for a nurse over and over as he guided her to a bed.

“Nurse, I don't want to be here!”

Liam said something, but Victoria was out of earshot. He was probably trying to say something funny to her, though it wasn't working. Debbie put an end to her complaints when she came over brandishing her shotgun. Liam stepped back from the bed, surely thinking of whether to overpower the girl.

“I think I recognize her from the house where Grandma and I waited for Liam to get better after our escape from...Duchesne. There were lots of other teens in the house, and I'm pretty sure she was there.” She couldn't be positive as it was hard to identify people from always seeing the tops of their heads as they leaned down to their tablets and smartphones. She wished she would have taken the time to get to know them. Make allies. Identify enemies.

Debbie and Liam returned, and the four of them formed a tight knot in between two rows of beds, about twenty or thirty feet from the wide stairwell—and the hovering drones.

“Debbie. Why are you bringing people to this boat?” Jane asked with innocence.

The girl stood very close to Liam, and her gun was pointed directly at the floor. Any one of them could overpower her in a second, yet no one did. Behind Debbie, the drones remaining menacingly stationary.

“I'm, like, an assistant to the Mayor of the town. He asked me to keep watch on any elderly people I could find while things were nice. But, um, when the town, like, um, got zombie-fied, and stuff, he told me I could be a big help by evacuating these—” she waved around the room “—million-year-old people.”

Victoria was about to reply, but Debbie continued.

“He said that, um...I could, like, have any car I wanted. I could get away,” she said with seriousness. “It was easy, until, like, now. Most people wanted to get out of the town before those, um, things, ate them.”

“But what happened to these people?” Jane interjected.

“What do you mean?”

Jane huffed in frustration. “They aren't awake! Can't you see that? This whole thing—it isn't normal.”

“How am I supposed to know? I'm, like, just the delivery girl.”

She spoke with an annoying uptalk. Victoria thought she sounded like she'd spent her life watching her tablet, instead of paying attention in school.

“But, like, the owner of this boat is almost here,” she said evenly.

Liam, this might be it.

She tried to talk to him using her mind. Willing him to know how she felt.

I love you, no matter how this ends.

Chapter 20: John Wayne

John watched as the Blackhawk maneuvered over the river. He was positive it didn't belong. Whatever it was doing, he had to know. Though not a gambling man, he'd bet Elsa was in that chopper. The ropes hung down, and someone at the top had come to the door...waiting.

From where he was, it might be possible to walk to hundreds of the interlocking barges sitting on the waterway. But the one under the helicopter was his destination.

He hunched over and pretended he was forty years older.

This is nuts.

He figured he had two cards to play. Either he could charge in, bullets flying, or he could labor in as if he were a disoriented old man. And what better way to play the old man than to wander the barges as if he were lost? To him, it made sense.

It pained him to do it, but he placed the rifle in a cranny behind some spools of metallic wire. No old timer would wander around with a gun slung over his shoulder. He still had his pistol and had no intention of throwing that down.

He rubbed his sunburned head. His scalp and thinning hair yelled at him for losing his hat. If he'd been forty years younger, the prospect of sneaking up on a mysterious situation might even have thrilled him. Now, his legs felt heavy as he jumped the short way from the first boat to the second. No one bothered to put ramps between them other than the direct route to the helicopter.

For many minutes he bounced from barge to barge, but always he moved closer to the one he wanted. There was some concern he would be mistaken for a zombie—he could see scores of them on the shore—so he stopped frequently to rub his back or tie his shoes. Things no zombie would do.

“I need some luck,” he said to his shoes on one stoppage.

Luck isn't a tactic, John.

As he neared the action, he lost faith in himself. Any second he would get noticed. Or shot. Or worse—captured.

His zig-zag path took him to an open-topped barge parked diagonally upriver from his target. The pile of bodies inside made him stop. The container was mostly empty, but near one corner a hundred bodies lay in a heap like they'd been tossed down from the top deck.

He'd seen plenty of corpses the last few weeks. Enough to last a lifetime. But these made him consider stopping his charade and run back to his tanks and forget this little side trip. They were all elderly. Most he recognized by their skin color as local townsfolk—a good portion were ancient black women. They were dressed in a colorful, but macabre heap—hands, heads, and shoes poked out the edges. One mixed group of gray-haired men was dressed in orange jumpsuits like they'd been taken from a prison. In fact…

He looked closer. They were chained together.

My God. What is this?

The ship stank. The bodies had been in the hot sun for too long.

Unwilling to give up on his mission, he closed the distance to the towboat. The tinted windows of the bridge wrapped around the superstructure, and he assumed he was being watched. Surely, the men in the helicopter had seen him, though somewhere along the line the people up there had roped down. His situational awareness was a disaster.

He pressed forward and got onto the deck of the all-white towboat. It was designed to push the flat cargo containers up and down the river and was the width of one barge. It happened to be paired to just one of those vessels. The ropes of the helicopter hung above it, confirming he had gone about this the right way.

The door into the crew space was marked with a series of imposing warnings stenciled onto the paint.

“Property of Ste. Genevieve Cement Fabrika.”

“MOPP 4 required beyond this point.”

A pair of logos—one for nuclear and one for biohazard—rounded out the advertising on the door.

No, at the very bottom, a comparatively gentle warning advised that hardhats are also required.

“I don't even have that,” he said to himself.

He went for the handle, but it was locked.

Sensing he was running out of time, he followed some steps up to a narrow deck which ran along the outside window of the bridge on the second level. From up there he could see the length of the barge. A satellite dish was on the near end. At the far end, there was a hole in the outer covering and some steps going down.

He put his face up against the window of the bridge—right at the corner. He hoped he could get some intel on who was running the boat, but he was disappointed. He could see nothing. Next to the window, a nearby door had a small porthole window, but he didn't see anything through there, either.

“OK, we'll do it the hard way,” he said in a normal voice as he pulled out his pistol.

He raised his arm, intending to strike at the window where he'd just been peeking in.

That's when the mechanical lock of the door cycled, and it swung open a few inches.

“Please don't,” said an emotional male voice.

“Identify yourself,” John replied. Part of him laughed at the thought there were a dozen armed men inside, just waiting for him to come through the door. His ruse got him this far, but wouldn't work a second longer.

“I...I just work here. I can't risk the equipment.”

“That doesn't tell me who you are.”

“I'm Bill Dredsel. I keep the Elma Jean running. Who the hell are you?”

John made a decision. If there were twelve men with guns, he'd have no chance. He decided to be bold. He pushed through the door, gun in hand.

A skinny old-timer in dirty overalls skittered backward into the bridge compartment.

John almost dropped his gun when he saw the place. After weeks of primitive living, blood 'n guts fighting hand-to-hand, and the rickety town of Cairo—he felt like he'd walked onto the space shuttle. The wrap-around windows showed the barge sitting in front of them, but it was filled with computer data, as if it were also a giant computer screen.

The area where he'd planned to smash the glass had a running string of data falling like snow from top to bottom. It became clear why the man didn't want him to break the window. It was more than mere glass.

Bill had his hands up, though he kept stepping backward. John was happy to see the proper amount of fear on the man's face.

“All right, mister,” he said in his best cowboy-movie voice, “I want to know everything that's going on. And we'll start right here.” He pointed to one corner of the carnival display of information—it showed four people standing in an area that looked like the ward of a hospital.

They were surrounded by several armed figures dressed in black.

Chapter 21: Threat Level 5

Liam had seen the helicopter hovering when they came into the hold of the barge, so he wasn't too surprised to see drones or more people come down the steps. After settling the two old women—the one endlessly called out for a nurse—he stood talking to the three younger women as the intruders dropped in.

He held Victoria by the waist. He wanted to keep her close until he could think of a way to get out of what was turning out to be a multi-layered prison.

Debbie with her shotgun.

The drones.

Whoever was in charge of the creepy hospital.

The helicopter.

And, should he make it outside again, the town was surely overrun with zombies.

Debbie seemed to anger at the sight of him holding Victoria. Even as the new men approached, she raised her shotgun toward him.

“Liam. I thought we had something. I, like, saved all these—” she started to laugh. “Oh, my. This has been fun, but I can't keep up this silly charade. Who talks like that?”

She stepped back toward the approaching dark-clad figures.

“I'm done talking like that. My mom is here—finally,” she shouted back to the new arrivals.

One of the men walked up to Debbie with a DNA sniffer.

“This is her.”

Debbie smiled wickedly while she pointed her shotgun at Liam, but her face cringed when the newcomer reached to her and injected something in her neck. A second later, she dropped to the floor with a hard thunk.

The shotgun fell to the metal hull and clanged loudly. Though it was impossible, he waited for the gun to fire itself.

Dad would scold me for thinking such nonsense.

There were three men, each dressed in black tactical gear and wearing face masks.

“Drop your weapons!”

Victoria set her rifle down, as did Jane.

Two of the men grabbed Debbie and pulled her toward the steps.

“Wait,” Jane cried out. “What do you want with her?”

“Elsa Cantwell is wanted for conspiracy to commit genocide. That's all you need to know.”

“You want a teenager for genocide?” Liam blurted out.

That seemed to take the man by surprise. Even from behind his mask, Liam saw the indecision. The man turned around, crouched next to Debbie, and whisked away her hair. It had covered her face as she went down.

“Oh shit. He's right. Check this. Fast,” he said to an assistant.

The machine was pointed to Debbie again. It only took a few seconds.

“Sir, this says it is Ms. Cantwell. The DNA checks out.”

“We've been played.” The man ripped off his face mask. He was middle aged, about the same as his dad, but he wore cropped hair and had the chiseled features of a movie superstar. He looked around the room, settling on Liam and his friends since they were the only ones on their feet.

“Sir, the drones?” Victoria asked as he approached.

“Ours. Well, they became ours. Look, I don't have much time. What's going on here? Who are you people? Why the beds?”

“You mean you don't know?” Liam asked with disbelief.

The man laughed.

His partner came up beside him, using the machine on the three of them. He only needed to get close before the thing bleeped.

“Holy shit! These three are Priority Level 5 targets.”

The weapons of the men came up in unison.

Liam tightened his grip on Victoria's soft midsection.

“We're innocent,” Liam said weakly.

“This kid is wanted in connection with bio-terrorism,” the man with the equipment said while pointing to Liam. “This girl is listed as infected, deceased. And this woman—”

The seriousness of the charges affected the men. They stepped back several big steps.

“Damn. This woman is supposed to have offed the President.”

“That figures,” retorted Jane.

“Sir, we are cleared to terminate these three on sight. In fact, someone wrote in some notes. It states several penal codes that will apply if we don't shoot them on sight.”

Victoria moved closer to him, though they were already about as tight as they could be. She looked up. “Thanks for coming for me. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He didn't care how it would look. He swept Victoria in his arms and kissed her.

There are worse ways to go out.

The kiss was a record-breaker. It was his first since their rendezvous in her dorm room, and it was something he'd been thinking about every minute since. It was everything he'd dreamed, and it made him completely forget the cruel world infected everything except what he had in those final seconds…

The kiss went on longer than he could have hoped. It truly was a good trade, if they had to die.

“Wait just a damned minute,” said the leader at last. “Just a damned minute.”

Liam heard the words and sensed the change. He really wanted to keep on kissing her, but they read each others' minds and pulled apart, together. Her smile and moist eyes encouraged him to look back to the intruders.

“If that's not Elsa, how in the world do we know these people are the threats we see here? Do they look like the world's most dangerous terrorists? This one is just a kid.” Of course, they pointed at him.

“We need more information.” Looking at Liam, he said, “I don't suppose you'd tell us whether this information is true? Are you the most dangerous boy in America?”

Well, it depends on who you are.

Out of his mouth, he professed a much more mundane explanation.

“This Debbie girl asked my girlfriend and me to help her bring elderly people to this boat. We wanted to help. They were being left behind for the zombies to get them.”

“And her?” He pointed to Jane.

“I'm his mother,” she said matter-of-factly. “We live in Cairo, of course, and I chased these two when I thought they had come out on these barges to have sex. You know, being the end of the world and all.”

Liam felt his face flare up in embarrassment. But he couldn't exactly counter her argument without destroying his fabricated story. “Yeah, my mom saved us from doing something stupid,” he said without emotion.

“Sir, there's no way we're going to find four Level 5's in this toilet of a town in nowhere, USA. This has to be a mistake. Our data has been hacked.”

The leader looked around, evidently thinking it over.

Liam rubbed Victoria's back. It was all he could to keep his hands busy because the other one was shaking at his side.

2

“We bag 'em all. Take them back to base. Let HQ sort out the truth.”

Liam let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Sir, we're looking for Marty Peters, my great-grandma. Does your computer have a location for her?”

The computer man looked at the leader, who replied with a curt, “Do it.”

In a few moments, the man quite forcefully smacked his own head. “She's in the system. We now have five of them! We've struck gold.” He pointed to the machine. “It says Ms. Martinette Peters is wanted for involvement in the trafficking of bio-toxins across state lines. We are ordered, and I quote, to terminate her at extreme distance and ensure body and biological remnants are purged thoroughly in a hyper-temperature smelter.” He laughed. “Who the hell writes this stuff?”

“But where is she? Is it in there?”

“Yeah, sure kid. It shows her not far away, in the town.”

He figured she was on the run. She wasn't at the house he'd checked.

The questions were there, but he wanted to know something else. A dark force he suspected was behind all this, no matter what Victoria thought.

“I um, have one more name. My dad. If it's not too much trouble could you look him up? Then I won't bother you again.”

“That won't be necessary, son. He's waiting for us right where we left him.” Jane looked right at him.

“His name is Douglas Hayes. Just tell me where he is, so I know he's OK.”

The computer operator seemed hesitant, but the leader nodded. “One more. That's all I can handle.”

In moments, the man had his answer. His face revealed his surprise before he voiced it.

“Well, thank the lard for good taste. We've cooked a half-dozen doozies. This guy is the worst one of all. A Homeland Security special adjunct in charge of studying the spread of the ZF one dash one zero strain of influenza. It says he infected the lab and escaped with several virulent samples of the virus.” He paused, his eyes continuing to read what must have been a lengthy blotter.

“Good God! Intel says he was part of the division that secretly helped the Patriot Snowball rebels infect D.C. Then he did some work overseas. Finally...oh come on! This can't be true. It says his role in the insurrection was to sanitize the city of St. Louis of all life.”

Secretly, Liam knew at least some of that was true. What about the rest? If they knew what was really happening would they kill them instantly? How did he let himself get dealt into the game, so these men thought his own father was a mass murdering lunatic? What did that make him?

Afraid to know the truth, he had to ask. “And his location?”

“It says he's right here, of course. Cairo. What is this place? A criminal convention?”

Liam felt Victoria turn toward Jane, but no words were passed.

The leader walked up to him. “You three better give me some answers. I'm authorized to terminate you on sight. Do you know what kind of power that gives me?”

“Sir, are you with the Polar Bears?” Liam had to eliminate that possibility.

“I ask the questions. I'll give you five seconds to start talking.”

“Or what?” asked Jane. “How dare you threaten me and my son.”

“Or I drag your ass onto my helicopter, and I drop you in Supermax prison. That might be a fate worse than death, right now. By some miracle, most inmates survived this crisis. Isolated living, I guess.”

“We have rights,” Victoria added.

The man looked at her with the first hint of sadness. “Ma'am I used to work for a special branch of the United States government. I swore an oath to a Constitution which no longer exists. My country no longer exists. It's been taken over by an insider coup. Your rights were stripped by those people. My job now is to take it back. Your rights extend up to and including me shooting you three in the face if I believe for a second you are as dangerous as this computer says you are.”

He got as close as he dared. “Someone had better say something.”

“I'm a Snowballer,” Liam said while thinking of Mom. “My goal is the same as yours—to restore this nation to what it was before. Three weeks ago I didn't know how good I had it. I did nothing but play video games, and I didn't even know about the Patriot Snowball group back then. But I ran into some of them. They told me what the government agents did to them. They told me about all the experiments.” He pointed to the nearby beds. “This place is one of those experimental sites. I'm sure of it. We're here to stop the people responsible for this. Though I admit, we aren't doing a very good job.”

“And the others?”

“We're all patriots.” He was careful not to lie about Jane. He didn't know what she was, other than the wife of the man who shot his girlfriend. Her loyalties remained suspect, even though she was with Victoria. “Victoria and I helped my great-grandma Marty Peters escape from the Riverside Hotel and Casino in downtown St. Louis. They were doing experiments there with elderly citizens, and they had captured many different specimens suffering from the zombie plague.”

He took a deep breath, adamant he could keep this momentum going.

“And we witnessed the death of an Agent Duchesne, who was part of a government agency called the NIS—National Internal Security. They're the ones who released the plague on the Patriot Snowball. Not the other way around. They knew about the plague long before it came to America. After we escaped, we found more evidence of the creation of the plague down in the Koch Hospital Mine. They did their experiments on bodies of soldiers they stole from the National Cemetery.”

Victoria jumped in. “And I was, uh, working with Liam's dad at Washington University when the NIS destroyed his lab. He'd discovered that some people are infected with the plague and don't even know it. The NIS wanted the plague spread far and wide. They even claimed they used a hidden signal in the tornado sirens to get the zombies to move faster during the first few hours. They're the bad guys, sir.”

The leader stepped closer and looked at Jane with a cold stare.

“My name's Ben, ma'am. Not at all pleased to meet you, but I'll protect you, if I can. I have to ask: do you have any control over your kids? It sounds like they're getting into a lot of trouble,” he said with no irony.

“They've caused me more sleepless nights than you can imagine,” she said with a forced smile.

Ben turned around and waved them all toward the steps.

“I don't believe any of it, of course. But HQ will get to the truth. I'm not coming out of this empty handed.” Then, quieter, “Not again.”

3

While they'd talked, the drones had come to rest on the metal of the hull. The propellers were rapidly slowing.

Near the steps, the leader noticed them and spun around. “If any of you tries anything, I will kill you. Are we clear?”

“Crystal, sir,” said Liam, knowing the answer.

“We've apparently lost control of these drones. I didn't order them to stand down. Jay, check for threats. I'll radio up top. We're getting clear.” He pulled out a radio and called for his flight.

His man went up the steps, then promptly tumbled back down. Dead. A bullet had struck him in the back of the head.

A gun was in Liam's face before he had taken one deep breath after seeing the body.

“Who's with you? Tell me or you're dead!”

He couldn't speak. His stomach was ready to unload, though.

“There's no one,” Jane piped up. “I swear. We came alone. Don't kill him, please,” she pleaded with passing sincerity.

The barrel of the gun wavered.

“Dammit!”

The gun pointed to the floor.

He put up a finger to quiet everyone, then got back on his radio.

“Jolly Roger, this is Crusader One. Abort, abort, abort.”

There was no reply.

“Jolly Roger—”

The whine of the helicopter increased, then an explosion above sent shards of shrapnel through the metal roof of the barge an instant later. A blast of heat poured down the stairwell, into the compartment. Everyone ran deeper into the hold. One big section of the roof buckled inward, as if something heavy had landed on it. The scraping of metal and the repetitive clangs on the outer hull strongly suggested the helicopter had been destroyed.

“It's a damned trap!” Ben yelled. “Get to the other end.” They all ran down the length of the hull. The younger people helped the older set get along to relative safety.

Most of the debris landed about mid-way down the length of the line of beds. A big piece of steaming hot metal struck one of the sleeping bodies. It collapsed part of the bed, and as Liam ran by he was horrified to see it had taken off one of the man's legs. The scary part, he realized, was that the man didn't wake up.

He kept eyes forward. There were others in the area, and he didn't want to know if any of those had been struck. There was nothing to be done for any of them. Right now his priority was Victoria. They ran hand-in-hand.

When they reached the other end of the boat, he was disappointed. There was no exit. He assumed this was because the space was normally used to store coal, or rock, or grain. Not people. The designers never anticipated a second exit would be necessary.

“Ben, are you guys military?” Jane asked.

“We're Secret Service,” he said as he searched the walls and ceiling.

“Secret Service,” Jane repeated. “Is the president around?”

“I couldn't tell you if he was, but we do more than protect the man. We protect the office. Whether you know it or not, you said the magic words. If you know about the NIS and aren't killing us for hearing it, we can more or less assume you aren't NIS.”

Liam thought of Jane. She was, at one time, NIS. How deep did that loyalty run? Was she honest about working against them? She'd outright killed NIS agents with her sniper rifle, but he'd learned to doubt everything with Hayes, and, by extension, his wife.

“The beds! Quick, stack the beds,” Ben ordered. Using two empty beds, they managed to stand high enough to reach the metal barrier over the roof. It was like a series of shallow arches, each about ten feet wide, that were placed one next to the other for the entire length. For all he knew, they were hundreds or thousands of pounds in weight. Ben tried to push one up, but it didn't budge at all. He got up there to help, but the result was the same.

“I think they're bolted together above us,” Ben said with a hint of defeatism.

They came off the bed, and Ben took a seat as Liam came down and stood on the floor. “Polar Bear, huh? I don't suppose you can call them, can you?” He was clearly joking, though Liam probably could call his mom. She was so far away the best he could hope to do was tell her goodbye. Maybe now was the time for that...

“If you're a Polar Bear, that officially makes us enemies of the domestic sort, but I'm going to let you off on a technicality. Currently, I have no idea who is running the country. The Polar Bears seem to be the only people rallying citizens around that Constitution I mentioned.”

“They're not involved in this,” he told Ben.

I'm pretty sure.

“Someone just downed a military chopper and assassinated a good man. No matter who they are, they've got the drop on us. And now we're trapped with all these dead people.”

Ben stood up.

“OK. I don't know what's happening here. If you're part of some elaborate ruse to get us here, I promise I'll make you pay before I'm taken alive. You get me?”

Liam got it. No matter who came down the steps, he might get shot for simply being there.

This time, Victoria pulled him in close.

4

“Liam, I saw Hayes get off a helicopter far up the river. I don't know how, or even why, he'd be here in Cairo.”

Liam and Victoria split off from Ben and his partner and kept their voices low enough Jane couldn't hear.

“That tracking system is pretty impressive. It told me you were in Cairo. I would never have left Forest Park if I wasn't sure you were here.”

“And I would have never left, either, but we were attacked by NIS. They almost killed me and Hayes. They did kill some of the Polar Bears in Hans' house.”

“I know! I found them. And your shirt,” he said with a smile. “I knew you were there.”

“Hayes left a bomb,” Victoria said with a start, though it was clear Liam survived.

“I found it. Poof,” he made a gesture with his hand of an explosion. “I ran out the back door and hid behind a tree. The whole place went up. And...I lost your shirt.”

She hugged him, laughing softly.

“One of the dying patriots helped set it up. Hayes was sure he'd kill this Elsa chick. They have some kind of relationship.”

“You mean like they're in love?” he said with wonder.

“I don't know. I don't think so. She included an invitation to her wedding when she killed the men in Hans' living room. Like she knew he was coming, and that he would be the one to read it. He said she was trying to get even for killing Duchesne, who was her fiancé.”

Liam looked out over the beds. Ben and his partner had flipped beds on opposite sides of the room and faced the distant staircase. He didn't think it was likely an enemy agent would just walk down those steps like there was no threat down here. If these guys were Secret Service, he imagined they were pretty much the best of the best.

Debbie and the drones remained on the floor, bathed in the daylight coming in from the opening above the steps.

“Why do you think Hayes is here? Why didn't he come with us?”

Liam faced her, but he couldn't say what he truly thought.

Hayes lied about everything.

“I don't know. If he's here, maybe this Elsa person is here? Maybe he hoped to surprise her,” he offered.

Liam called out to Ben. “You said Elsa was wanted for genocide. What exactly did she do?”

Ben set his gun on the side of the bed, which was facing up at the ceiling. He ducked down a little so he could address Liam. “Elsa Cantwell was part of the overthrow of the democratically elected government we had before the last election. We didn't see it as it happened, but once the infection spread across the world...let's just say cybersecurity became a thing of the past. Government secrets were hacked and released in torrents. Old debts were settled. Talented freelancers engaged in brute force attacks with no worry of being caught. None of it mattered because the government itself was fading.”

“Except for you guys.” He thought it was obvious.

“Yes, we have some very talented freelancers, too. And they were more than anxious to hunker down in a government safe house in exchange for the use of their talents. I'd call it World War III, though most people never saw it. What you see out there now is World War IV—the sticks and stones edition.”

“But why go after Elsa now?”

Ben looked at him with sadness. “Do you know what it's like to be the only ones fighting for everyone else? The Marines. Army. Air Force. They're all focused on killing the zombies. We're a relatively small organization. We recently lost a President. Maybe two. Our street cred is mighty low.”

“So you wanted to prove to the world who was responsible for besting you?” he said, finally understanding their motive. It was exactly like his own. Track down those responsible for ending the world—and pin them to the wall in his tell-all history book.

“No. We're aren't vindictive. We need to find Elsa because she's used government hackers—for a long time—to write herself into many of the FEMA and Homeland Security org charts. Without the President, and an unknown number of people in the Presidential chain of command gone, we have no way of knowing who is actually in charge of this nation. The line of succession works wonderfully, except when all the members are missing. In fact, whole families are missing. Not just the person in line for the Presidency.”

“Whole families? Like, someone went out and killed the family members of anyone close to the Presidency? Would that include Senators and Representatives?”

“Possibly. The Speaker of the House is number two. The president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate can assume the presidency if the first two are dead. There are seventeen people who can assume the presidency, starting at the Vice President, and ending with the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

“Homeland Security,” Liam said with realization. “You said Elsa wrote herself into the org charts there. She wouldn't by chance be in charge of the whole shebang, would she?”

Ben studied him. “You catch on fast. Who did you say you were again?” He smiled, but it was guarded. “But she isn't the head of the organization, as far as we know. At this moment, in this boat, I really can't say.”

He laughed while he turned back toward the stairwell.

“My family was on a kill list, like you just mentioned. Everyone up and down my family tree was on that list.” He couldn't reveal it was Hayes that canceled the hit.

“Do you have any family members in government? Maybe a Secretary of Energy or Transportation perhaps? There are a lot of Secretaries in the line.”

“My Grandma was a member of the House of Representatives, from Colorado.”

“Rose Peters?”

The fact that he knew the name before he'd said it was greatly troubling.

5

The look on his face probably spoke for him.

“I have to know all the tier one officials. She happens to be very special, though. She disappeared a few months ago, at the height of that Snowball business. She was wanted for treason. Did you know that?”

He shook his head.

“It was all a sham, of course. We know that now. But back then, boy howdy, the FBI was on the hunt for her.”

They both looked to the front, where the drones began to hover once again.

“I guess they hacked our hack,” he said with a determined grin. “I've got to pay attention.” He turned back, using the bed as concealment.

But not cover, as Dad would have pointed out. Bullets could come right through the bed sheets and flimsy mattress. The hold had a distinct deficiency of anything solid to hide behind.

The drones hovered for a few moments once they were fully operational, then went up through the gap in the roof above the stairs, like balloons escaping a party. When they cleared the area, only the beeping of the patients' electronic monitoring devices and the soft gurgle of the water remained.

He was about to make a comment when another drone fell through the opening. A small drone he recognized right away as matching the style of the one he'd seen back in Forest Park. The one that talked to him in Grubmeyer's bathroom. He'd finally been caught, but he could hardly believe how much had to come together for her to find him a second time.

“Are we having fun down here?” The tinny voice was Elsa's.

“Hello Elsa,” Jane yelled.

The boxy little drone zeroed in on them and floated right between Ben's men to be near him and Victoria. Evidently, Jane wasn't of interest to the operator.

“Liam. I'm so glad we've run into each other again. I've finally got you where I can talk to you in peace.”

The distant echoes of gunfire called out that lie for him.

“Sorry for shooting your man, Ben,” said the drone as it turned toward the Secret Service leader. “But I can't chance anyone getting away. I've got some of the most dangerous people in America right there with you. Did you know?”

Ben looked at him, then at Victoria and Jane. He saw that the man was being tested.

“I know what it says on my computer, but I have reason to suspect my system's been hacked. These two kids don't look like they could rip open a teddy bear, much less threaten the U-S-of-A.”

“That's their secret. They look like a couple of clueless teenagers, even act like it most of the time. But put them in a corner and they fight like freakish honey badgers. Watch out,” she said with a laugh. “We tracked Mr. Liam across several miles of hostile territory in downtown St. Louis. He evaded everything—and I mean everything—to get to his girly friend in the park.”

Victoria squeezed his hand.

“And the girl is just as bad. She escaped from several, uh, situations I've been monitoring from my mobile headquarters. Assisted by primo enemy numeral uno. A man I think you all know, and some of you love, Mr. Douglas Hayes.”

Some commotion rang through the speaker before she continued.

“I tracked you all coming down here. It was a nice effort for Douggie to try to get himself clear of you all, but I found him. I found all of you. The boy who weaseled himself into our little secret. The girl who can't keep herself from poking into places she doesn't belong. The brave Secret Service dopes who have been on a months-long wild goose chase. The renegade doctor and his wife, who just can't get it through their head that this is a killing operation, not a life saving one. Who else is down there?”

They all looked around.

“What about all these people in the beds?” Liam called out.

“Oh, they're part of another of our experiments. Did you know that the oldest people in our trials were able to channel zombies using their minds? Why do you think so many found their way to Cairo? I wish Jasper were here—I had him convinced it was mere chance that all of them came ambling down along the shores of the rivers. That it was bad luck.” Her laughter was not friendly.

“These zombies you see out there are from Chicago and Indianapolis, but I'll let you in on a little secret of mine because it excites me so much. The zombies from St. Louis are coming down the shore of the Mississippi, too. They're the ones this is all about. They have a very special skill. Did you know?”

While the discussion was ongoing, Ben had moved a lot closer to the front steps. Elsa either let him go or didn't know he'd gone. Whatever it was, she finally called him out.

“Don't bother, Ben. My drones are up top, safe from your hackers now at the bottom of the river. If anyone so much as sticks their head up top, my drone buddies will take it off. Oh yeah,” she started. Someone interrupted her on her end, and the line stopped broadcasting for a moment.

Finally, she returned. “Sorry about that. I'll let you keep guessing about the St. Louis zombies. Maybe you'll figure it out when we start loading them onto all the barges so helpfully gathered by the city of Cairo,” she laughed. “Meanwhile, I have good news to share. I have a surprise package about to head your way. You'll never guess what it is.”

He was pretty sure it wasn't anything he'd like.

“Have any of you heard of the Broken Angel delivery system?”

No one responded.

“Ben, I'm surprised. Oh, well. You see, when you get into the weeds of what the government really does, you find some pretty cool stuff. It turns out there are ICBM's sitting in North Dakota which have been stripped of their nukes. The eggheads thought it would be neat to slap on a conventional warhead, tighten up the guidance package, and roll it out as some kind of special delivery system when they wanted to decapitate a foreign government. Can you imagine?”

Liam looked at Ben, as the resident agent of the government. He merely shrugged.

“All that money! Pissed away on a weapon that could never get off the ground without alerting the world to a possible nuclear missile strike in progress. How do you reassure anyone you aren't launching a nuke? Only one thing could result.”

“Nu-cue-lar war,” he said with awe.

He'd finally found his use for the annoying word.

“That's right,” said the voice in the drone. “But now, with the whole world offline. Well, no one will care that a missile took off from ass-end-city N-D and was on a trajectory to armpit-lane I-L.”

“You're ICBM'ing us?” Ben shouted.

“That's right, suckers. If I don't use these weapons now, I may never get the chance again. This is the end of the world people. Everything left is single-use.”

The tinny speaker laughed.

“But before I get the satisfaction of watching your little boat sink with the world's biggest bullet, I'm coming aboard to collect something of mine. I'll be along in a jiff,” she added with good cheer. “I need the two kids—without guns—on the top deck in sixty seconds. No SS. No old timers. No one named Hayes. You all can stay down there. And Liam?”

“Uh huh.”

“Bring the unconscious girl.”

He turned to Victoria, sensing that they'd really, truly, for real, reached the end of their adventures.

“Well, partner...” he sighed.

She looked at him with watery eyes, but she didn't have the look of defeat. Far from it.

“Death by nuclear missile. I think we've graduated to the big leagues,” she said with a smile and a wink.

ICBM or not, the Secret Service guys had a look about them. He'd seen it before. Elsa had said it herself.

The honey badgers were up against the wall.

Chapter 22: Simple Solution

Liam and Victoria managed to get the groggy girl to the top deck. It felt good to be in the sunlight of the day but tilting his head upward only reminded him something was heading his way from above the sprinkle of clouds.

“You think a missile is already on its way?”

“I don't know. What do your books say about this?” Victoria laughed and then grunted as the girl's feet got caught on the top step.

“They all say we should be running...”

“But?”

“Well, you and I could jump in the water. Probably escape. But what about those people in the beds downstairs? They're going to die if this boat is destroyed.”

Before she could answer, a fifty-foot fast-moving orange racing boat ripped through the water as it approached from the north. When it neared the edge of the barge, the pilot decelerated and reversed the tuned engines expertly, so the long, thin wedge of a boat slid right up next to bulky freight-hauler. As it settled in the water, a lithe blonde woman in a tight-fitting black outfit climbed from the open-topped driver's area near the back onto the deck of her boat and then hopped to the barge. A menacing-looking drone detached from a metal frame attached to the back of the boat. It floated up with two guns that hung out from its lower frame. Unlike the other drones, this had been painted dark gray and was marked as U.S. Air Force property.

“Greetings, sports fans,” the woman shouted as she approached. The gray drone was loud. The four large fan blades cut the air next to its master. The noise and wind it generated made it hard to hear. The other drones—the ones that had been down in the hold—also floated above them, but they were smaller and quieter than her new guard dog.

“Hello?” he replied.

She tapped something on her hip, and the monster drone backed off.

“Ah, better? We can at least talk for a few moments without that thing bothering us. My name is Elsa.”

“We know! You're nuking us. What could we possibly say to you?” Victoria yelled, ignoring the fact it had gotten quiet.

Liam used the time to look her over. Her outfit was similar to a wetsuit but seemed much more flexible. He was almost embarrassed at the level of detail it revealed of the woman's figure, but he saw it for what it was: protection against zombies. She wore gloves and simple boots. There was no skin showing below her head. The skin went up to her chin—

“Ah, young man. I see you're admiring my...assets, huh?” She smiled, but her tone made it sound like he was ogling her.

“It's a zombie-proof skin, isn't it?”

“Yes. DARPA has the coolest toys. Somehow, a senator on some appropriations committee got funding for this getup. He was convinced a zombie shit-storm was coming, and he wanted his very own suit of armor so he could survive it. I think he'd watched too many movies.”

She walked absently on the wide decking at the front of the barge, and Liam couldn't help but notice she was showing herself off as she moved about.

“He got them to make the damned things! Imagine my surprise when my team found them. It was part of a whole kit. Some zombie author made a list of what you'd need to survive, and Senator Doofy used that list to prepare, right down to a weird pickax he was going to carry. Naturally, I ensured I got one of the female versions so I wouldn't look like I had a diaper on under a man's version.”

“How do you—”

“Don't ask, kid. All you need to know is why I'm wearing this.”

“Um, because you started the Zombie Apocalypse?” Victoria said with an intentional uptalk.

“Ah, you sound like my daughter,” she motioned to Debbie, “when she plays her part.”

Liam let go of the girl's hand. She fell to the metal surface, but he made sure it wasn't far enough to hurt her.

“Your daughter? She mentioned her mother was coming,” Liam spoke while he took a step away from Debbie.

“Wouldn't you? She's the only good thing left in my world. She was finally going to have a new father...”

He became distracted by his thoughts. Internally, he tried to visualize how he could use Debbie as leverage to free himself and the people on the boat. If he had a gun, he might be able to do it, but with drones watching his every move that didn't seem likely. He wasn't even sure what he'd say.

“Guess again,” she shouted. “Why am I wearing this suit?” Liam could barely hear her now that she'd moved backward, but her motions were clear. She was waving someone up from inside the cabin of her racing boat.

“Mom!”

His heart passed on several beats.

Elsa guided Lana up onto the deck of her boat, then indicated she should stand there. She looked tired and bruised—her hair had been shaved from a chunk of the left side of her head. What was left on that side barely reached her ear.

“Don't you move,” Elsa said to him. Victoria had also taken a few steps forward. “I have another surprise,” she said with a cackle.

The next person to come out of the cabin made Liam's blood flow backward.

“Dad?”

2

The shock of seeing his dad lasted only long enough for his heart to restart. He ran the final few yards to the edge of the barge and threatened to jump onto the flat top-deck of the cigarette boat. His mom was zip-tied and had a gag in her mouth. Her eyes were sad—focused on him.

His dad—

“Liam Peters. I'm pleased to re-acquaint you with your late father. I had some trouble finding him. He was buried, don't ya know?” Her laugh was malicious.

His dad was a zombie. The creature—he willed himself to see it as something other than the man who was once his father—was attached to a loop at the end of a metal bar held by another man dressed in the funky skin. The zombie stumbled as the man pushed him onto the deck. It saw Lana and tried to lean toward her, though the man kept it in check.

“What are you doing?” he shouted. “You dug up my dad?” he said with a frantic voice.

Victoria held firm to his arm, but she emitted a shriek, like she was fighting back the horror.

“Liam, there's something you should know about me. I'm a "just do it" girl. I never quit. I never roll over. I never lose my focus. Once you killed my lover, the gloves came off.”

He'd been there when her fiancé died, but he didn't kill him. A point she probably already knew, since she'd watched it with drones.

“I've followed you. Your family. Your friends. I've been trying to get you all in one place, so I could have the pleasure of killing them all in front of your Grandma, but I've got to hand it to you people. You are hard to catch. Those three black girls you had with you in the mine? Where did they go?”

He stood, stone-faced, while looking at his parents. Even if he knew where the strange girls had gone, he'd resist telling her.

“It doesn't matter. You left some people in your MRAP—Hayes' MRAP—down in Busch Stadium. Didn't you? I figured it was abandoned, but my intel says no one went in before it magically drove away after you were gone. That means someone was still inside.”

Mel and Phil are alive?

“You've been very lucky. Too lucky, I'd say. Is your Grandma pulling your strings?” she said matter-of-factly. “I wonder.”

Unwilling to give her the pleasure of seeing his anger, he kept still.

“I don't care,” she spoke with venom. “Rose is still AWOL, though we traced her call to you. We'll find her. For now, I'll settle for them,” she said as she pointed at Mom and Dad. “The two people you care about more than anyone else in the world. Plus, Victoria and Marty,” she chuffed. “I've got you here,” she pointed to Victoria, “and Marty is with my sleeper agent. She should be here soon enough to see the fireworks.”

Grandma's alive, too?

It became hard to hold back. He wanted to yell and scream and rescue Mom, but he didn't know how that could happen. And if Grandma was around…

He stood there. Emotionless on the surface.

Jerry thrashed against his brace, causing Lana to side-step.

“If you jump, I kill them all,” Elsa said to Lana, without bothering to look at her.

Lana's eyes re-focused on Liam.

Elsa pointed at Mom. “I found her with no problem. She followed you to Forest Park. In a tank!” she giggled. “Yeah, funniest thing. She used that old tank to cross the dead land between the St. Louis Arch and Forest Park—looking for you. I found her gawking at the home you blew up, Liam. It was a simple matter of intercepting her, separating her from her Polar Bear pals, and stuffing her into this speedboat with her late husband. It's been a real interesting ride, let me tell you.”

Liam felt heartbroken for his mom. She had started crying, though she fought it.

His mind was afire with ten different feelings. He'd been betrayed. Friends were still alive, he thought were dead. Grandma was alive. Line after line scrolled through his train of thought until he reached the final one.

“It can't end like this,” he whispered to Victoria.

There had to be a way he could save them all. Had to be.

Throughout much of his journey, he'd felt like he had a guardian angel watching over him. Someone there to pull the trigger to remove threats at just the right time. That angel had used an entire towboat and its barges to run down Duchesne back in St. Louis. That piece of “good luck” actually started the whole process which brought them all to this moment. Maybe it would have been better if they'd perished there. Now, more people were going to die.

Because of him.

“Liam, we have to do something. Fast,” Victoria said out of the side of her mouth. They couldn't be heard by Elsa because of the distance between them, but she seemed to understand their motives.

She cut the tether on his dad.

“God. No. Please.”

3

The zombie that was formerly his dad used his newfound freedom to lunge at the person facing him. Liam found it strange to think first of how his mom's neck had been cleared of all distractions—her shaved hair suddenly made perfect sense. It was the exact spot where the zombie attacked.

The Quantum Virus was about to claim another victim.

He pulled out the knife given to him by Brandyweis. It was a huge military knife with one sharp serrated edge. He judged it to be similar to a Bowie knife, which was one of the weapons in World of Undead Soldiers. Not a very good one, he noted. It could be thrown in the game—something he'd never done before.

Lana, knowing she was doomed, let herself fall backward. The additional weight of the Dad-zombie propelled them across and down the slick, rounded surface of the motorboat.

As they moved, he threw the knife as hard as he could at his father. He used all the hatred he had for Elsa and what she'd done by digging him up and putting him in front of his mom. It sank into his dad's side, but there was no question it would serve no role in stopping him. The knife's only function was to make him feel that he'd tried.

Lana fell into the water with the zombie, beyond his sight.

She didn't want me to see her die.

“You bitch!” he screamed as he lunged at her. Victoria held his arm, which he both fought and relished. The man behind Elsa had a gun trained on him.

Elsa tapped her side, and the gray guard dog lurched so it sat between them as well.

“No more weapons! We're not done,” she said with finality.

Liam was burning with anger—and despair, but as with so many encounters of late, he felt helpless in equal measure. Maybe he could have reached her and pushed her into the water, but then the drone would kill Victoria and everyone else. And he couldn't be sure he'd best the woman in the water.

She held up her wrist and spoke into it. “Janey Fitzhume-Hayes, come on down,” she added a laugh before dropping her arm.

“I know she's not a friend of yours, but I figure killing her will pass the time for us until my consolation prize arrives. Once Marty is here, we can wrap this up and I can get back to the responsibilities of seeking the real prize: Rose Peters.”

“Why? Why are you doing this? None of this makes any sense. What do my grandmas have to do with the world?” he replied with embers of anger flaming high.

The drone moved so they could talk, though the man's gun remained pointed at him.

Elsa looked at her wrist like she was checking the time. “I've got time to kill. Why not.”

She moved to the edge of her boat. Close enough to talk normally.

“The world was doomed, kid. The Spanish Flu was the key. That's how we found the Quantum Virus. Looking at preserved samples, we were able to extrapolate its structure down to the sub-atomic level. A smart immunologist whom you know noticed the base composition had changed over the course of the few years we had good enough microscopes to get down to that level. He deduced the virus embeds itself in a host and needs about a hundred years before it activates. Because our, um, helper virus used the code from the Spanish Flu strain of Influenza, and because that had been building itself for those hundred years, it became much more virulent than we ever imagined. Ironically, those with the most immunity were the people alive during the time of the original epidemic in 1918, although some elderly people also had limited immunity from spending so much time with their older immune family members.”

She laughed, though not as heartily as before.

“Once we started, we had to ride the bucking bronco all the way to the end. We're managing this crisis so that when the Quantum Virus runs its course, we'll be there to pick up the pieces.”

“But you released the virus to kill citizens. Why are you after my family!”

“Settle. Settle,” she said calmly. “If you want to reshape the world as an ideal image, you have to ensure you're the one controlling all the clay. There was too much deadweight in our government. Too many payments to keep people quiet. To keep them in line. Do you know my group has been paying off politicians since the Founding Fathers' time?”

Liam's head wobbled with the foreign-sounding history lesson. As far as he could tell, it had nothing to do with his mom and dad's deaths, or his grandma's.

She sighed tightly. “What I mean, my young Mr. Peters is that it became too expensive to control the world. We're using this as an opportunity to scale back our financial obligations—our bribes if you will—and start over with a smaller, but more powerful, cadre of politicos.”

His blank looks were working.

“Dammit. Don't you see? In order to control a politician, you have to own him. When my predecessors started this game back in the early 1800's, money was plentiful and politicians were few. Today, it's the opposite. Those same families have controlled the levers of power for too long. They've become complacent, even in their bathtubs of money. We're going to start over with fewer politicians.”

“And fewer people,” Victoria spoke with great sadness.

“Yes, the Quantum Virus was unexpected, as I said. But, since I'm now the head of Homeland Security, I'm in line for the Presidency. Lots of room out here for the few left in the line of succession to find themselves in accidents,” she chuckled. “And once I'm President of the United States, none of this will matter. If there are only a handful of people left, we can rebuild the whole world.”

“You are beyond insane,” he finally said.

“Don't use that word!” she shouted, sounding exactly like an insane person. “The United States was an engine that drove the world with money. My peers and I shaped the world using that money. We told politicians what to think. We told them when to fight wars. When to sell. When to buy. And we were very good at it. We took the United States to the pinnacle of civilization.”

He put his hands on his ears. The words drove him mad. It couldn't be something so base as money. Zombies were not created as a debt-eraser for a group of rich people. His mom and dad didn't die for greenbacks.

“So, what, you're like the Illuminati, or whatever? I've seen the movie,” Victoria's voice passed through his hands because she was so close. He loosened them so he could hear the reply.

“We have many names. If anyone hints at revealing our true name, they and their entire family are murdered outright. Sometimes we set nations at war to exterminate those families.”

“Like saying National Internal Security,” he challenged while dropping his hands.

“The NIS is one of our fronts, yes. And you will die for saying the name. Mark my words.”

Her calm demeanor frightened him to the bone. Here was someone willing to kill the people he loved right in front of him, but also kill the entire world around all of them. There was no limit to the level of…

“You're evil,” he said flatly.

“What? You think I'm 'he who must not be named?'” she said dramatically. “Hey, what about this? Have you heard the initials RF?”

He looked at Victoria and saw no recognition.

“Aww, damn. You must not read horror books.”

He took serious issue with the statement but didn't care what she thought about his depth of literary knowledge, positive he'd read many more zombie books than her. Her frustration at not being able to goad him was seemingly tiring her to their conversation.

“Anyway,” she said, “I'm not the devil if that's what you're thinking. God doesn't exist.” She pointed to Victoria's cross on her necklace. “And praying will get you nothing but disappointment.”

“But you are the devil,” Liam replied. “And the only way ultimate evil can exist is if ultimate good is out there, too. If the world were controlled by evil, it would always look like this.” He pointed out into the broken world as he said it. “God may not be a person, but God works through good people. I've seen it. And I know a group of evil men and women like you could not have run the world for so long and not messed it up sooner.”

“Actually, Liam, they did.”

Jane had come up and joined them from the hold.

4

“Tell them I'm not crazy, Jane.”

“Oh, you are. But that doesn't mean you're a liar.” She turned to Liam and Victoria as she came up next to them. “Douglas and I were deep in their ranks before all this happened. I saw firsthand how they could nudge legislation, or pay off a foreign country to keep oil prices low. I've seen how they contract hits on people and prune back family trees. But the thing that turned us off—made us risk death day after day—was their relish for the chaos. I'd been brought up my whole life thinking we were doing a necessary duty to the world—pushing it in the right direction. But the reality was just the opposite. The world was being ruined by what we'd become. The final straw was this virus. We could have easily put out a warning that saved a lot of lives. Instead, we let the world get bitten. Some of us even enjoyed the result.”

When she was done speaking, she faced Jane. “You killed Douglas, didn't you?”

“I picked him up at your family business, where you dropped him off. He's floating somewhere close I'd expect,” she said with a girlish giggle.

Liam expected her to cry or show some kind of emotional distress, but she seemed outwardly serene. She swiped at her brow, then dropped her forearm to her mouth so it blocked it from Elsa's view.

“Good luck,” she said in a low voice. She said something else, in a whisper, which sounded like “I love you Clara,” but it made no sense.

Before Liam could reply she'd reached behind her and pulled out a boxy-looking pistol. The sound was deafening as she fired multiple times at Elsa.

Elsa dodged the first volley and slid across the deck back into the driver's compartment of her boat, along with the man. He watched her skin-tight uniform as she dove, wondering if he'd ever outgrow looking at such things. Jane tried to follow, but the gray drone intercepted her.

He and Victoria both dropped to the deck at the moment the confrontation started, but the women were so fast he was able to watch nearly the whole thing before he thought to get himself flat.

The drone was about thirty feet away, to their right. When she was about halfway to the boat, it oriented on her and unleashed hell. Its twin guns lit up even as Jane tried to knock it out of the sky.

More guns cracked behind them. The Secret Service agents fired their rifles at the drone while poking out the top of the stairs.

Just as it looked like she might survive the open-air crossing, Jane fell heavily to the metal. The gun skittered across the deck, into the water. Blood saturated the back of her shirt as she lay face-down. Where moments before she was vivacious and energetic in her efforts to kill Elsa, now she was wide-eyed and dead.

The drone swung its guns toward the Secret Service agents, firing all the while. But Jane had scored at least one hit. One of its blades was noticeably erratic, and the whole unit tipped as the other three fans compensated. The guns were also firing wild, which gave him no reassurance as he kept low. To his surprise he was on top of Debbie, ensuring she wouldn't be struck by a bullet.

The one time I don't want to be the hero.

But that wasn't necessarily true. He'd protect anyone…

Except, maybe, her.

Once Elsa was out of sight, he was able to eye the drone as it took more damage from Ben and his partner.

The problem was the remaining drones. Even as they beat the junkyard dog into submission—knocking out a second fan motor—the surviving drones closed the distance with the agents. A volley of gunfire sent the two men back down into the hold.

“What do we do?” he wondered.

Victoria's face was blank. When she saw him protecting Debbie, she scooted up next to him to help.

“We pray.”

He heard and then felt the turbine wash of one of the drones as it hovered above them. Its single gun faced the stairwell. If it looked down, he'd be dead.

One of the smaller drones hovered over the steps when it exploded in a shower of sparks. It fell straight into the hold.

He heard a distant pane of glass shatter. That noise was followed a moment later by the whip-smack of a gun shot and ricochet from the chassis of the metal hulk above them. The thing turned and let loose with its gun onto what Liam guessed was the bridge of the barge towboat attached to them.

From such distance, he couldn't see the identity of the shooter.

In the commotion of the firefight, Debbie became animated. In seconds she seemed completely awake. He and Victoria were both on top of her, so she could only turn her head side-to-side.

“Get OFF!” she said as she squirmed.

“Be quiet. You want to get us killed?”

“Us killed? What's happening? Where's my mom? She's supposed to pick me up,” she said in a slightly whiny voice.

“She's in a boat speeding away from here,” Liam replied. The powerful engine of the big watercraft echoed off the barges on the other side of the river.

“You guys win the battle, but not the war.” Elsa's voice came from the little unarmed drone she'd used to communicate with them. “The launch vehicle is already out of the tube. You have to clear out of there. Jump in the water. Swim away. Take my daughter and I may let today slide.”

He looked at Victoria. At Elsa's daughter. Finally, they looked at the metal roofing of the hold below.

“Are you thinking what I am?” he asked her.

“Use this boat to ram this girl's failed mother?”

“No, I hadn't thought of that. But I like where you're going,” he said with a sliver of humor. “We need to move this barge so we can save the people below.”

“Where can we take them to get away from a nuclear missile?” Victoria asked.

Debbie grunted in pain. “Can you please get off? I know where we can go. My mom told me to report if they ever moved this barge. There's only one place she didn't want it. That's where we'll be safe.”

Liam pulled back a little. “And where might that be?”

Chapter 23: Elma Jean

Jasper had used the distractions at the front of his boat to crawl across the barges back to where he'd left his rifle. The lips and lids of the varying types of barges in the flotilla provided the cover he needed. He avoided looking into the cargo box filled with bodies. The smell was enough to keep him moving.

Once Elsa showed up he knew his only chance was to punch through her drones if he was going to have any chance of stopping her. When he finally had the gun in hand back in the captain's perch, he waited until the inevitable gunfire before he was willing to risk his position.

He watched the young woman get felled by the dark drone, then watched the two Secret Service agents pepper it with enough lead to knock it down. The scene was a flurry of flying robots hovering around the deck of the boat, some with guns, some not. He selectively fired on those he felt were the most threat to the kids lying on the deck and left the SS men to fend for themselves until he knew the others were safe. The Elma Jean had enough surveillance tech he could hear the discussions on the front side of the barge—200 feet away.

He already knew why he didn't like Elsa, but once she explained who she was, he thought about putting a bullet through her brain and ending it. The thing stopping him was the ICBM she claimed to have launched. If he knew his math, they didn't have much time to get to safe ground. The North Dakota to Illinois routes was measured in minutes. And he didn't know when the missile cleared its hatch.

When the firing stopped, he was happy to see the three kids running his way.

“Toss off the lines,” he shouted down to them while pointing to the heavy ropes linking them with the next row of barges. The boy skidded to a stop, turned around, and ran forward again. The girls continued until they reached the cleat at the back.

“Fire her up,” he ordered Bill.

The delay gave him a moment to see where Elsa had gone.

“She's staying close,” he said, mostly to himself.

“Her daughter is still here,” Bill replied.

“Of course,” he thought.

The gunfight was fast, but deadly. One woman was dead at the cost of a few drones. It was some kind of miracle those kids managed to lay right out in the open and not get swept by all the gunfire.

The two girls came in the hatch, followed a second later by the boy.

“This is Debbie,” the boy started before he was inside the room. “A missile is heading for us! She knows where to go.”

“Well, all right then.”

She pointed and Bill nodded gravely.

“There's an ICBM heading for us,” the boy said.

“You're Liam, right? This boat has excellent hearing. I've heard everything spoken down there.”

“You've been up here the whole time?” Victoria asked.

John pointed to the bodies in the nearby barge. From up in the bridge they could all see down into the cargo area and what was inside.

“I had to be sure what I was dealing with. I followed Liam and this other girl when they brought those older women.”

Victoria smiled at Liam like she was proud of him.

“I'm here to kill Elsa,” he said with a stoic voice as he and everyone else felt the towboat accelerate.

“Get in line,” Liam responded. “She's pretty much the top person responsible for giving us the zombies.”

“I almost can't believe that. I was with her in Cairo. I've seen her operate. She's smart and seems full of herself, but destroying the world? I always thought it would be a man in a big chair with a white cat.”

“I've been trying to figure this out,” Liam explained, “because I promised the dead fiancé of that maniac I would find out whoever was responsible and make sure the world knows who to blame. Does this ship have recording equipment?”

Bill, working the controls of the ship, nodded.

“Then we have the evidence we need. If we get this to someone in charge, we can—”

“There is no one in charge,” he replied to Liam. “The government has been pared down below the critical mass needed to keep things operational. Yes, there are military units still fighting along with the convoy, but I'll be damned if I can find anyone higher than me in the chain of command. And look at me—a two-star general piloting a barge. That's the extent of my authority.”

The three kids gave him serious looks.

“One thing at a time. First, we save the ship. Then, we get that bitch—”

“She's my mom,” Debbie said vacantly.

He paused to consider the poor girl's situation.

“I'm sorry your mom is the queen of all bitches.”

Debbie gave him the faintest of smiles in return.

2

Bill the pilot had the barge moving at what John thought was a high rate of speed. The water was fairly calm, but swirled in muddy eddies all the way across. The dull green superstructure of the bridge towered above them and the shadow of the highway soon eclipsed the sun. They were heading for a gap in the fleet of parked barges. Apparently, the towboat operators frowned on parking barges near the bridge pylons. That gave them all the room they needed.

“You're gonna feel a jolt,” Bill warned. “Brace yourselves.”

Ten seconds later they all leaned forward as the front of the barge ahead of them ran part-way up onto the riverbank underneath the bridge. Bill gunned the engines then throttled back. The towboat drifted with the current, but he increased the propeller speed. He used the powerful engine to push against the current. As long as they kept at it, they could hold the barge partially on the shore.

“With a little luck, we can pull her back off.”

Luck. Yes. An ICBM's-worth of luck.

“What do we do now?” Liam asked.

“You guys go back down into the hold. Make sure those SS guys knows what we're doing. Keep an eye on those snow birds,” he said with a smile.

The two girls ran out right away, but he stopped Liam.

“Your grandma is still alive. I saw her this morning back in Cairo.”

Liam stepped back in the room.

“Where?”

John pointed down and across the river to the point of land formed where the Mississippi River and the Ohio river joined together. It wasn't more than a mile away.

“I left her with Chloe, one of the few people I trust over there. She'll get her to that point," he showed Liam the southern tip of land where his people were waiting for him, "and then they'll get out of Dodge. The zombies have taken the rest of the town. Be quick.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Your grandma was very proud of you. I thought she was nuts when she first told me about you. Going off into the wild. Getting yourself in sticky situations like this one. But you did good. I had a whole Army battalion behind me, and I couldn't pin Elsa down.”

“Well, we don't have her yet, but thanks to your recording device we have the evidence we need.”

Liam gave him a thumbs up before taking off after the two girls.

“Bill, if you show me what to do, I can man this station while you get below.”

“Pfft,” he huffed out. “You Army men are all the same. Always want to be the heroes.” Bill gave him a harsh look but cracked himself up before John could reply.

“Let me guess. Navy?” he said cheerfully to Bill.

“Yep, did a tour in 'Nam on the America. SAR, mostly.”

“Well Bill, USN, we're about to see the might and fury of United States Air Force.”

“So they're going to miss us by a whole state?”

They shared a laugh as the roof dropped in on them.

Chapter 24: Non-Linear

Liam's awareness returned, slowly.

His face was on well-manicured grass, which was odd because his previous memory was running down the length of the industrial-metal decking of a Mississippi River barge…

“What happened?” he asked himself.

While sitting up, he discovered Victoria. She was similarly sprawled on the turf next to him but also stirring. Her black tank top and faded jeans appeared fresh out of the washer. His “gifted” black honey badger t-shirt had returned to just-bought condition as well.

“Liam?”

“I'm right here.” He reached out and touched her hip to let her know he was close.

The grass was bright green, as if lit by the sun, but when he turned to the sky it was dark as night. Stars and constellations graced the heavens from horizon to horizon around him. Only the waterfall blocked his—

“A waterfall from space,” he said rhetorically.

“I'm not feeling right. I'm hallucinating,” she answered.

“No, I think we both are.”

They helped each other so they could stand and properly take in the view. The waterfall fell from the darkness above, which made him realize something was affecting his perspectives. Stars above were clear, like each one magnified when he looked at it, but if he saw them from the corner of his eye they fell back among their peers.

“It's all real,” said a weak voice behind them.

Liam spun around, knowing it was Grandma.

“You're alive!” he shouted, followed a moment later by, “I think.”

His excitement was tempered by the impossibility of everything around him. They all hugged while Grandma sat on a stone bench at one edge of the grassy patch, near a cliff overlooking an ocean. They watched the green-tinted water light up with the ferocity of an electrical storm. As far out as he could see, the water appeared agitated under the surface.

“I'm so happy to see you,” Victoria said while they held each other tightly.

“Grandma. That woman dug up—” his voice wavered, “—Dad. Elsa infected him, like those soldiers we saw in the mine. He attacked Mom.” It was all he could say before getting too emotional.

The hug continued while Grandma spoke.

“Mercy, me. I'm so sorry you had to see that. Just remember, it wasn't your dad. Jerry died a long time ago.”

Liam found himself impressed with her composure. Jerry was her grandson, after all.

Finally, with one final squeeze, he stepped back. He and Victoria took a seat on opposite sides of her, so they could all watch the spectacle in the water.

“What is this place?” he asked, assuming she would know. “Are we dead?”

“I don't think so,” Grandma replied. “This is where Al has been taking me ever since the zombies arrived. He said this was inside my own mind.” Her speech slowed as if she didn't believe those final words. “Which means you two can't be real.”

Liam protested. “We're real! I was running with Victoria, and Debbie, when I...blacked out...I think. I'm not really sure. But I'm not in your imagination,” he said with conviction.

“I remember the same thing. I was running with Liam when I heard a loud banging noise, followed by blackness. I should be on the barge.”

Grandma made a sound. An audible “hmm,” like she was impressed.

“I don't know. Maybe this is real.”

“Where are you? I mean out there?” he asked.

“I'm in a truck in Cairo. I'm with Chloe. A sweet girl who is a friend of the man protecting the town. I heard...a sound. Chloe screamed. I think I hit my head.”

“A friend?” Liam spoke with disbelief. “Elsa said she had an agent of hers bringing you to her. She was excited to hurt you. She wanted to hurt all of us—our whole family—because of Grandma Rose. She wants to be president of the country or something.”

“Chloe isn't a spy,” she said, but Liam wasn't happy to hear a wedge of doubt in those words.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes. No one seemed to know what to say next. Liam certainly didn't. If they were dead, it was a nice place to end up. If they were still alive, he couldn't imagine what had brought them there.

“Does it always take this long when you come here?” he asked her.

“No, usually Al is here guiding me. Or he takes me other places, like that bridge from your book.”

He laughed gently. “I wish we were there. I'd like to go into those books for real. Maybe if we're dead, that's what the afterlife is all about? Experiencing the memories of others. We can drop into story after story, forever.”

“I wouldn't want to drop into the books you read, Liam,” Victoria said from the other end of the bench. “I've had enough of zombies and scary stuff for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, they're not that bad. None of them really scared me. They weren't real, you know. This is real.” He laughed. “Not where we are now. I mean the world with barges and infected and ICBM's.”

“ICBM's,” he and Victoria echoed the letters.

They both leaned forward to look at each other across from Grandma. “The missile hit us. That's why we're dead,” he said with the sound of “of course” in his tone.

“None of you are dead.” The voice sounded electronic at first, but resolved into a man's voice. Like it was adjusting itself.

They all got up.

2

“Al!”

“Great-Grandpa? You're real?”

“Hiya Marty,” the man said. “Hi Liam.”

“He's not really Al,” Grandma offered.

“No, it's a convenient form so that I can communicate with you.”

“What do you look like, then?” Victoria chimed in.

Al smiled broadly. “You all love to ask questions.”

“You've been talking to my Grandma all this time and you haven't shown her what you actually look like?”

He put on a brave face, but he was terrified inside. Dealing with zombies was one thing, but interacting with ghosts was upping the “OMG” factor.

“I can see there's no use in continuing until I explain what I am.”

Liam nodded, as if that would force Al to continue down that line of thinking.

“I will tell you, and show you, but first I want you to take a short walk with me. Deal?”

Everyone agreed, but when he reached for Grandma to help her move, she had already started. She didn't need a hand. Her back seemed straighter, and thus she appeared taller. The hair remained white like the snow, but her gait suggested a much younger woman.

They walked around the pond below the waterfall. It appeared as a grotto of ferns, shrubbery, and exotic flowers. The water was clear and deep, and he could see to the rocky white bottom below the surface. A small creek flowed from the pond toward the cliff near the ocean.

“I've explained this all to Marty. This waterfall is a representation of how she sees my computer network. All the planets are linked on the waterfall like computers on the internet. Some stations are lit up, and some are dark. It all depends on a few factors I'll get to in a moment.”

"A computer system?" Marty asked quizzically. "This isn't outer space?"

"You'll see," Al assured her.

Liam was dizzy looking up at the tumbling water. He recalled a photo of Angel Falls in one of his school textbooks and imagined this was higher and wider than that one, but without any frame of reference to compare and contrast, he had no way to know. As they rounded the pool and approached the falling water, it became obvious the water was frozen—not moving.

“The water is moving, Liam. But it moves at Galactic Time, which is different than how you experience time.”

“It's amazing,” Victoria said, sharing his sense of wonder. She held his hand while pointing to everything, like a kid at the zoo. “Are we moving fast or does Galactic Time move slower?”

“GT moves at a glacial pace compared to how you experience time. It has to so that I can manage everything that needs...managing. I'm not all-powerful, you know,” he said while smiling at her.

“So what are you?” she countered.

“That's coming. Just a little bit farther.”

He led them to the edge of the waterfall. A rocky face sat off to the right side, and an inset door was apparently their destination.

“I've been in there,” Grandma said, possibly to calm everyone.

“Indeed, my dear woman. You have. She helped save you kids when you were sucked under that debris a couple of weeks ago. Did she ever tell you that?”

“No,” Liam said with understanding. “But I always wondered how that zombie swam up and pushed us to safety. That was you?”

“Oh, Al exaggerates. He did all the work. I was a bystander.”

They all arrived at the door. “Marty, you could run down a thief and still call yourself a bystander,” Al said with a healthy chuckle. “I always believed you were going to save the world. I think that day will come. But, more immediately, we talked about how you could survive the disease, didn't we.”

“You helped me,” she admitted, “along with God.”

“Yes, but God helps those who help themselves. And you three have been helping yourselves—I don't mean it like you've taken from others, I mean you've kept each other alive. Always looked out for each other, and the people you met along the way.”

“But I infected people,” Victoria said quietly.

“There are lots of carriers, my young friend. You mustn't fault yourself for what was done to you.”

“I...I killed people?”

“Not at all. You were used to spread the disease. At this point, I'd wager everyone has been exposed to it. And...once you found Marty.” He seemed to be building up to something, but he held it to himself.

He continued. “You have to understand this. I can't bring you to this place. You have to find it yourself. To do that, there must be three...um, let's call them inputs because I can't think of a parallel. Three people tied together in both proximity and through their emotions. You three have succeeded in that regard, where few others have even tried. Your love for each other has emotionally invested the three of you, and that energy is what has allowed Marty to open this door.”

The door was ajar by about six inches.

“That's where I helped control the swimming zombie,” she added. “There were blue dots and red dots, and such...”

“We just gave him a little nudge,” Al said while passing through the doorway. “But that's because there was only one of you. Now, we have the proper number.”

Liam walked into the room, feeling like he was in a dream. If he was dead, which was still a real possibility, he couldn't figure out why he put a dumpy-looking old computer on a table in the middle of the control room he now entered. It looked like it was about a hundred years old, and had a computer screen with plain green characters on a black background.

Unable to ignore it, and sure it was the answer to whether he was dead or alive, he walked right up to the terminal. A single line flashed patiently at the top of the screen. On. Off. On. Off.

“Welcome aboard.”

3

“This, my heroic trio, is the payback for all your recent suffering and trauma. It isn't actually the little computer you see here. This is just what Marty sees in her mind when she thinks about the word 'computer.'”

“Oh, Grandma,” Liam said with some humor. “You're way behind the times.”

"This is why the waterfall is representing all the computers in the world. It's hard for her to visualize such a complicated system without using cosmic terminology."

"That makes perfect sense." He turned to Grandma. "Computers aren't magic or outer-spacey. They're just a bunch of bits and bytes and hard drives..." In just a few words, he'd managed to hopelessly complicate things for her.

"Or, they could also be seen as one computer linked to a waterfall of other computers." Her imagination had built this place. He couldn't explain his feeling of disappointment. He imagined how fantastic it would have been to be dead and have the universe at his fingertips.

“So, how do we use this "waterfall" computer?” Liam said. Turning to Al, “Can we use this?”

“Yes. All three of you can.”

He re-oriented on the terminal. “How?”

“You three have to touch it. It's the final physical link which will confirm you three have access to what's inside. Marty often speaks of miracles. This is the miracle. You three are the first to figure it all out.”

Liam looked at the other two. Neither Grandma nor Victoria showed any recognition at what they'd done. Al seemed to respond to their doubt.

“Just touch the computer, please.”

Again, he looked at the others. Victoria remained still, but Grandma moved closer to the console. She reached out to touch it. “Al hasn't lied to me in all this time. I think we can trust him.”

“If it's good enough for Grandma, I'm in,” said Victoria as she, too, reached out for the computer.

Al stood off to one side, a kindly smile on his face.

“Well,” Liam said with a deep sigh, “if this is some kind of a trick, it's been pretty magnificent.”

“Not a trick,” Al said as Liam reached out his hand.

A series of words sounded in his head—like magic.

“System Boot: Standby for recognition sequence.”

It was a woman's voice. Friendly, but with a touch of a robotic cadence.

“Liam Peters: Uploading.”

A picture emerged showing Victoria through his own eyes, as if he were reliving a memory. He recognized the memory as it played on the screen. It was just after they'd escaped St. Louis, on the third day after the sirens. They had snuck away from Grandma, though she was sleeping only a few feet away on the other side of the large Poplar tree where they'd come to rest.

Liam was watching Victoria as she stood next to the tree. He knew they were having a conversation, but that aspect of this memory seemed to be secondary.

He could feel the emotion he was sensing at the time. His heart was beating like a race horse. His palms were sweaty because Victoria was boldly looking directly in his eyes.

“I was wondering if you could tell me more about the shadow government?” Victoria asked that question, knowing Liam would understand it was code for “kiss me you fool.”

In the memory, his heart was reaching an explosive crescendo. He was feeling excitement wrapped with abject fear. A fear on a different level than what he felt faced with all the zombies they'd escaped. He understood at some level this emotion was stronger than all those others.

And then he leaned in and kissed her passionately. It was their first kiss. It was the first time he'd kissed a girl. He could sense his emotion as it happened. Pure, amazing, joy.

Though she slept in the scene, the real Marty giggled with childlike delight.

The kiss lasted a long minute. His emotions toward Victoria were crushing him. Not love exactly, not yet anyway, but after all they'd been through he knew he would do anything to protect the new girl in his life. A promise he knew he'd kept since that kiss.

When they finished, he wanted to do it again immediately. Very badly. But Victoria had taken him in and held him close and whispered something in his ear. He admitted he'd forgotten all about it, as he was so overwhelmed by what had just happened.

“Thank you for giving me a reason to live.”

The memory ended, causing Liam to instantly miss the powerful emotions he'd just re-experienced. Would he ever have a similarly powerful emotion with Victoria?

I hope so. I love Victoria. I crave that emotion only with her.

His thoughts, translated to words, showed up as green text on the 8088 computer from the relic pile.

“Aww, Liam. I love you, too. I remember that moment like it was yesterday.”

His face burned red with embarrassment—Grandma just saw into his private thoughts—but he felt pride that he'd helped Victoria on that day and that they'd helped each other ever since.

The woman announced,“Status: Liam network is clean. One-half of pair-bond network established.

“Thanks. I think,” he replied.

Wait. Pair what?

“Martinette Peters: Uploading.”

The next memory was Grandma's. He recognized her features even though she appeared almost as young as him inside the memory. After a brief ride in an old car—the memory knew it as a 1926 Model T Runabout—Grandma sped up an alley until she arrived at her small garage. It was the same alley and garage at the home she'd lived in her entire life. The same one where he'd been staying this summer.

“No, please. Not this,” the real Marty in the room cried out.

Liam felt her fear.

“Marty, you must share this. Please,” said Al.

The memory never stopped. Liam wondered what could have his grandma so agitated. She was usually cool on the stool.

Driving faster than he ever imagined her, she slung the car around the corner of the garage and stood on the brakes. She was obviously showing off, though no one else was around. Liam felt the thump of something bang off the front. They all felt it. Grandma's emotions assigned pain to that bump.

Grandma whimpered for a moment but seemed to catch herself.

“What is it, Grandma?” Nothing about it made any sense. Did she run over her favorite bike? Did they have skateboards back then? He ran through his own garage, imagining what would make such a sound.

In the scene, young Marty froze as she climbed down from the driver's compartment. Something on the floor had caught her eye.

“Impossible. It can't be,” young and old Marty said at the same time. Liam felt the confusion, though he wasn't sure how, or why.

Young Marty stalked toward the front of the car—willing herself not to see what was there.

A tiny white shoe.

It broke Liam's heart to see the next few moments. Marty finally made it to the front—and saw her little girl sprawled out on the oily floor.

“I left her in her basket in the backyard so I could go for a joy ride. I was only gone for a few minutes. Baby Victoria always slept soundly. Something made her get up and go into that garage. I never had a clue she was there.” Her voice was weak, but she wasn't crying profusely, which was what he felt like doing now that he felt her internal pain.

“Status: Martinette network is clean. Master controller for triad established.”

Liam ignored the computer. “How did you go on, Grandma?”

“Prayer. Lots of prayer. It helped me, it really did.”

“I love you, Grandma,” Victoria said to her from across the terminal.

“I love you, too, Victoria,” she said with her wink.

Liam realized there'd always been a connection between them, even before he and her became more than just “apocalypse friends.” Grandma had a daughter again, in a matter of speaking.

“Victoria Hennessey: Uploading.”

Liam wondered what the system would show of the girl he'd come to know and love over the last several weeks. It appeared to be taking emotional memories from each of them.

Liam frowned when he saw the first images. He imaged it would be his face. Instead, it was a significantly older boy—a young man.

Victoria's emotions are a stormy sea upon seeing the face.

Love. Distrust. Confusion.

“Victoria I love you, let's seal the deal tonight.”

Fear.

Liam noted it was real fear, not the giddy fear he felt when trying to kiss her for the first time.

“I'm sorry Darby, you know my parents wouldn't approve,” she laughs nervously, desperate to get his train of thought on something else.

“But do you approve?” He smiles widely, but his eyes are cagey.

Something unsettling passes through Victoria's mind.

Exposure. Lost. Alone.

Victoria looks at her surroundings. She is in a truck with the young man, in a remote part of a dense forest.

“We passed the Ranger station back there a ways. Maybe we could get directions.”

She was near home, in Colorado, but she was also adrift in the middle of the ocean. She had made the suggestion, but her heart knew it would fall on deaf ears.

The next several minutes were a blur. Victoria purposely fogged over it.

Betrayal. Sin. Evil. Embarrassment. Fear.

Liam felt them all.

“Don't worry Vicky, now we'll be together forever. We're promised," he said while holding her hand and pointing to the Promise Ring he'd given her. "That's as good as married.” He took a deep drag on a cigarette in the darkness of the back seat of his big pickup truck. Her memory focused on the evil look in his eyes, revealed by that tiny red fire.

Again, Liam expected her to break down at the imagery, but as Grandma before her, she faced her memory with calm once she knew she couldn't control it.

The memory skipped to something else.

“What. The. HELL!”

In that flash, he saw his own face after he'd just run over Victoria's hand with Grandma's wheelchair. It was the first time they'd met. He secretly hoped her first emotion on seeing him would be true love, but what showed on the screen was much better.

It said, “Not Darby.”

The memories ceased as suddenly as they began. The computer was just an old box again.

The digital voice started up. “Status: Altered virus has been purged. Victoria network is clean. Remaining half of pair-bond network established.”

A second line was added to the green and black computer screen. Like the first, it sat near the top and flashed on and off in rhythm with its mate.

“Network: Access Pending. Physical terminal awaiting input.”

4

“This is the end, Marty, Liam, and Victoria. The end, for me.”

“You're leaving us?” Grandma replied.

“Well, I was never here,” he replied with a smile. “But you don't need me anymore. My role was to find an appropriate trio with the qualities necessary to unlock the mainframe. It requires a human pair-bond and a complimentary elder, or controller, to guide them. This is how the network was designed before it was corrupted. Three is an important concept in this computer system. First, your triad must open the gate—if we can call this place a gate—and then, after the pair-bond has produced a suitable offspring, a new triad is formed. The elder is replaced by the child.”

“But I have other elders,” Liam began. He didn't finish his thought because he couldn't be sure anyone was left alive.

“And so do I,” Victoria continued firmly.

“Of course. And if you had traveled with a different elder, this equation of emotional bonds might be different. I found Marty first because the Quantum Virus is both pure and mature inside her. That's why she could access her memory with such precision, and it's why she kept the two of you—and others—from getting infected by the corrupted version of the virus—the zombie plague, as you call it.”

“So, it's a helpful virus?”

Al looked at Victoria very seriously, as if deciding whether to respond.

“Only now, at the infancy of the medical advances of modern medicine and sub-atomic microscopy has humanity learned about this evolutionary virus. The most salient point with regard to Marty is that it requires approximately 100 years before it matures. For most of history, humans died before they were thirty...”

“Has it been around that long?” Liam asked. "Are you some kind of alien?"

"Are you?" Al shot back.

"What does that mean?" he replied.

“I'm its caretaker. I've been listening to this...system...for a long period of non-linear time. It has an underlying signal that calls out. It wants to be discovered.”

“This is weird,” Victoria whispered. “I'm not sure we're not dead,” she said, without humor.

“This is life, Victoria. The things that bring you together are...life. The sight of a man in uniform. The smell of a woman's hair. The firm embrace of a boy you favor,” he smirked at her. “These are the physical links. I'm also talking about the emotional bonds unique to humans. The timeless sadness of the loss of a family member. The undying memory of first love. Surviving trauma and rebuilding a life. The three of you are survivors, no doubt, but you are good survivors. You are agents of the light. Of what is right. I think you'd be shocked to know how rare that is.”

Liam's face had to be red.

First love.

He reveled in that statement while looking at the object of that love. The smell of her hair had been a powerful draw. It was one of the many exciting memories from their time in her dorm room. Something he hoped he would never forget.

Yet, something didn't add up. He was a survivor, and survivors don't take things on faith.

“You speak as if you aren't really here, but how are we talking to you? If we have access to the computer, can we find out where you are? Outside of this room.” It seemed as reasonable a question as one could ask, but he added, “Where are we, for real?”

“Ah, of course. You naturally want evidence. Doubting Thomas, as they say.”

He returned a blank look.

“I'll explain it to you if we get out of here,” Victoria advised with a little humor.

“Humanity has a dangerous edge. To reveal this terminal would be, by all indications, a death sentence. This is a conundrum I've been trying to solve for a long, long time. Imagine if arrows pointed to a secret location, like needles in the desert, and a team of your scientists arrived to study it. Knowing what you know, do you think this gift would be shared with others? Would it be preserved? Or...”

He paused for emphasis.

“Would it be corrupted?”

“It would have to be saved,” Victoria exclaimed. “We wouldn't destroy something so wonderful,” she said with too much doubt.

“My friends. The Quantum Virus was designed to make human beings whole. It could cure all disease. Reverse aging. It would enable you to live forever. But, scientists stumbled on a weakness in the design. Instead of letting everyone live forever, they self-selected the gift for themselves. For the rest of humanity, they used that weakness to reverse its effects...”

“My God,” Liam replied. “We did this.”

“They stay dead forever,” Marty continued, turning to Al. “You said these pour souls would stand around until the sun burned out.”

“There's that precise memory,” Al said with a brief laugh. “What should have been a gift has been turned into a curse. Your scientists tinkered, unable to find the source of the gift, but they've destroyed the wrapping paper.”

Liam sighed. A part of him wished he were dead. He sought escape from the responsibilities he'd been socked under. Caring for Grandma. Protecting her from a smorgasbord of scientists—

“Hayes knows!” he blurted.

A second later.

“But he's dead. Dang.”

“I bet Elsa knows. She seems to have her fingers in everything,” Victoria added.

"No. Not Elsa. It's Grandma Rose. That's the reason Elsa is after her. This has always been about her. Killing my family was supposed to draw her out. Hell, it almost did—she called me on my way to Cairo."

"What kind of stuff is your grandma into?" Victoria asked.

"I have no idea. I never imagined she'd be into computers and viruses, though."

"Be careful, Liam. I won't say if you're right or wrong, but I will say finding her will be hazardous to you. If any one of you falls, the access to the others will fall, too. Then, there's no telling who could gain access to this network."

He looked at Grandma anew. Keeping her alive was already difficult—now it was off the chain. She could die at any moment of "old age."

Al walked to the door out of the small room. The three of them were left at the ancient computer screen, which had reverted to a single line of code.

“You can ask the computer anything you want, but I have to warn you. The three of you are linked together. You have been given a gift—very close to what was intended when this system was designed. But it will protect itself, too. If people like Elsa capture and try to use you...well, I can't promise it will allow that.” He paused in thought, then seemed to want to wrap things up. “Marty, my dear. Our time is at an end. I shall truly miss you.”

“Well, OK. I guess I'll miss you. I miss the real Al dearly. Never doubt that,” she said seriously.

“I'm sorry once more for the innocent deception. I'm just a memory in this place. My real form is much less interesting. Someday I hope to show you.”

He faded out with a flicker, like an old TV set turning off.

Sensing time was a factor, Liam hit the keyboard. The first question was easy, and he keyed it in with the speed of an experienced keyboarder. While he waited for a reply, he keyed in a second question, hoping it could handle two threads at once. There were a million questions he wanted to ask it, but only two were necessary at that moment.

“Ah ha!” he shouted as the answers popped up.

“Liam. Grandma's gone.”

5

He woke up on the rocky shoreline of a muddy river. The sun beat down on him and the buzz of grasshoppers was the only sound on the air. There was a hand on his right arm as he lay there—he could feel it twitch.

A zombie!

He rolled away so the hand fell from him, and he was relieved it was only Victoria. She was in a deep sleep. Her hands and arms were twitching slightly like a puppy trying to run in a dream. He found the word he liked to describe it: cute. With effort he committed the sight to memory, intending to use it for his book.

The book I haven't even started.

With a light touch, he shook her arm to rouse her. In moments she raised her head from her rocky patch. To his amazement, they were soaking wet but weren't as dirty as he expected after a dip in the muddy river. Victoria's hairdo got the worst of it, as her headband was gone and her hair went looking for it.

“Can you believe this is all real?” he started. “Wait. You saw all that, right? The computer room? The waterfall? The ocean and stars?”

She studied him. He felt giddy when their eyes met. So many possibilities!

“Um, what are you talking about?” she turned to look at the bridge. The barge was gone. Only a small piece of the towboat was visible underneath the broken girders. As if it sank and came to a rest on the bottom. The cargo barge—containing all the people in the beds—must have gone to the bottom as well. The old green bridge was missing one of its Missouri-side spans. As best he could tell, the ICBM came down through the trusses of the bridge, struck the concrete highway, then continued through to impact their boat. Since they were still alive, he assumed he and Victoria were thrown from the barge when it struck.

“We saw Grandma?” he said weakly.

For many moments he watched her with a sinking thought he'd been dreaming. But the side of her mouth turned into a tiny smile...then exploded into one.

“Got ya!”

“Are you kidding me?” he said with mock anger. He shuffled over to her and they rolled together on the rocks and mud of the bank. It was unbridled relief after so much suffering and death, even though the thoughts of his mom and dad killed him. This—human contact and life—was what he needed more than anything in those seconds. Whatever came next would have to wait.

They wrestled for a minute until Victoria pinned him while sitting on his stomach. The rocks hurt his back, but he ignored the pain.

“So we're pair-bonded, huh?” she said with a coy smile. “The funky computer man said so.”

“I, uh, I, um.”

“Wow, you're sooo eloquent.”

He saw the kiss coming. She'd telegraphed it, and added smoke signals to be sure.

As she leaned down, something struck her on the head, and she bounced backward.

“Liam Peters,” a female voice said without emotion.

He hopped up to a crouch. Elsa—still in her tight-fitting uniform—had wet hair, too. Like she'd been in the river. It was hard to tell as her defensive skin wicked water. Her boots were soggy, though.

“Where's my daughter?”

He needed a moment to think, but his response flowed easily once he saw her.

“Little Debbie? I have no freaking clue. You nuked her!”

He turned to tend to Victoria, heedless of what Elsa had to say.

“You were supposed to get her to safety. It's the whole reason I let you go.”

“You've hurt my girlfriend you stupid bi—”

A gun pointed in his direction.

“You recognize this?”

It was an old-looking handgun, but he knew it.

“That's mine.”

“I found this down on the St. Louis riverfront. Isn't that funny? Your mom knew it. I had her scared shitless on the way here that I had killed you and taken this for myself. I admit, that felt good.”

Elsa's laugh rubbed him raw, like a cat's tongue abusing his skin.

At the water's edge, with Victoria out cold but safe in his arms, he was once again faced with the prospect of losing her. He was almost indifferent to the dangers. So many, and all the time.

Though he was prone to jumping into things he didn't understand, this time, he knew what to do.

“God, if you've got one more for me...”

He picked up a rock of just the right size.

“You've already lost, Elsa. You. Your allies. Whatever you think is going to happen now, there are men and women across America willing to stand up and stop it. My mom and dad both did.”

“Ha! They're floating to the Gulf of Mexico. Who else ya got?”

“My Grandma unlocked the Quantum Virus. I've seen what it is.” He'd seen a million movies with the next line. “If you kill me, you'll never find out.”

“Hmm, that is interesting. Hayes said this possibility existed. He was 'working on it.' I didn't believe him, of course.”

She looked at him, long and hard. Finally, she put her gun into a small pocket of her suit.

That was his moment.

6

The rock left his hand as she was looking down at her side to tend to her firearm.

On second glance, she was keying something on her arm…

The rock's trajectory was perfect, and he timed it perfectly. His guardian angel was back! Or thousands of sessions throwing ball with Dad... It struck her above her temple. The impact startled her and she dropped the gun down the rock-strewn bank. Liam was already on the move.

Ignore the gun.

He saw the whole thing like he was in slow motion. If he went for the gun, he risked her getting there first or her jumping on him as he bent down to retrieve it. He would have done the same thing if their roles were reversed. The only chance he had was to dive on her and put her down. She seemed like a dainty woman. With a gash in her head.

He launched himself, intending to knock her off her feet. When he struck her suit, he was surprised that it seemed to deflect him. She went tumbling, but so did he.

A rock, pick one up!

He searched for a rock big enough to throw at her while she was on her back, but he was a few steps from anything useful. At a loss, he grabbed a handful of dry sand and threw it at her face.

She rolled over, shouting obscenities. He gained some satisfaction at her distress, but she lived up to her reputation by rolling to the gun while pretending to be out of commission.

She shrieked in anger and raised it. He had just enough time to get next to her before it went off. The sand affected her aim. He used the time to throw himself onto her gun arm—hoping to force her to drop it.

Once again he slipped on the strange suit, but his hands reached the gun—a normal gun—and together they held it as they rolled around on the rock, sand, and dirt.

“I'm going to kill you, kid. You and your girly are dead.”

“Victoria, help!” He had to hope she was coming to.

The gun went off as they struggled to control it. She was much stronger than he was. A fact he was quickly coming to appreciate.

“Ooh, you're a slippy one. And I'm the one wearing the suit,” she laughed, though she also sounded winded.

She tried to punch him in the jaw, but her aim was sloppy in the tussle.

The distraction of it made him lose his footing—he was between being on his knees and getting to his feet—and began to slip on the uneven surface. The gun was still in his grasp, but he was soon going to be at a severe disadvantage. If she maintained herself somewhat upright, he would be underneath her in moments.

He felt the rocks below his back. She made it to the crouching stance and had plenty of leverage to yank the gun from him.

No!

But simple physics beat him. Her strength helped end it that much faster.

“Nice knowing ya,” she said as she brought the gun to bear.

A flash behind her.

A loud grunt.

Someone brought a big rock down on Elsa's head...but in the fluidity of the battle, she'd moved, so the rock fell on her neck and shoulder. She replied with a wail and let go of the gun. She recovered from the surprise in seconds. It was enough time to see Victoria—blood on her head—hunched over, searching for another rock.

Elsa rolled a few paces away, always moving.

No choice. Get the gun.

He lunged for it. Time hung around his neck like kryptonite. He crashed to the rocks but soon felt the sand-covered gun in his hand. The weight of it rekindled countless outings with his father to shoot the gun now in his possession.

“I'm going to kill your girlfriend the second after I kill you. Put that in your stinkin' book!” Elsa launched herself at him.

Victoria fell to one knee. Hurt.

He fired in the same motion as aiming at Elsa's head. She wasn't a zombie, but her outfit made her immune to zombie bites, and maybe bullets. He wasn't taking any chances.

The first shot glanced off the side of her skull.

He was ready for it.

She was off her feet—springing at him with all she had left—and madly cursing.

He had time for only one more shot.

Aim for the eyes.

The little gun snapped once.

Elsa crashed into him, and they fell to the dirty bank together. She landed on top, taking them both into the water. She screaming in anger and madness, cursing while they thrashed together in the shallows. He was going to test his theory on whether he could best her in the water…

“Die you little punk! I'm going to kill you. Kill her. Kill grandma. I'm going to nuke your whole goddamn state!”

She was on top of him before he knew what was happening. His head dunked while she situated herself above him, but it came up when she solidified herself. She pulled him out so she could talk down to him.

“I'm so done with playing around,” she said breathlessly. One of her eyes was shut from his gunshot.

Victoria came tumbling into the water—jumping on Elsa's back and sending them both flailing into the water. He was pushed under by their combined weight.

When he surfaced, unencumbered, both women were screaming while splashing sideways in the knee-deep water. He took two steps and landed on top of Elsa. He grabbed her hair with both his hands and pulled with all he had left. Her screams went up a notch.

“You're both dead!”

“I don't think so,” he replied. Victoria used the distraction to stand and avoid Elsa's reach. As she got her bearings and saw what he was doing, she jumped on her as well. The combined effort kept her from finding her own feet, then she fell forward under the surface.

“Hold on!” he shouted.

He saw what was coming, and had a momentary lapse that almost gave Elsa enough wiggle room to escape.

I'm going to kill a person.

“We got her!” Victoria shouted.

Elsa was gyrating like a fish, but Liam used his anger at what she did to his parents to ensure his grip was unbreakable. Together they held the slick woman under the choppy water until it was clear she wasn't going to get back up.

Soon, their deep heaving breaths were all that remained for sound.

The water calmed.

Together they let her go, and she floated in the water. With great effort, he assisted Victoria back to the shore where they both fell heavily. He coughed out some lingering water while she hunched over to catch her breath.

Exhaustion overcame him and he fell flat.

“I guess prayer really does work,” he said to himself when he was finally able.

“I'd say that was all you,” Victoria said through her own exhaustion. She sounded happy. “You killed her.”

“I killed her?”

“We did it together,” she corrected. “And we should make sure she's really dead.”

A million zombies books would agree.

They pulled Elsa to shore and rolled her onto her back. As he looked at her pale face, he expected an explosion of blood and bone from where the bullet had struck, but it turned out to be a bloody eye and not much more. It reminded him of another shooting victim. The thief that pretended to be a police officer. Someone had shot that man dead just as he was about to injure him. At the time, he assumed it was another kindly man in a window.

But now, seeing the small caliber gun's damage on Elsa's face, he was sure he knew who had saved his life that day.

Victoria plopped down, then patted the ground next to her, urging him to sit.

“You're injured...uh, again,” he said with all sincerity.

“She rang my bell, but I'm getting used to it.”

“Lucky for me, huh? A few more seconds and I'd be floating down the river...” he sighed, “with my parents.”

“I'm sorry. Really, really sorry. That was a horrible thing to do to your mom and dad.”

“I could cry, but I don't have time.” He pointed to the wreckage of the bridge on the one side, and the smoke drifting up from Cairo across the river. “She's the first person—real, live, person—I've killed since the sirens. I can't believe how empty I feel. I should be dancing for joy.”

“You get used to it.” Unlike him, she'd already killed more than one “real” person.

She'd been distracted back at her dorm room—leading to their separate journeys to this patch of shoreline—and he wondered if the weight of killing had caught up to her. Like those soldiers who get post-traumatic stress syndrome.

But she didn't elaborate. Instead, she leaned back onto her elbows, like she was having a pleasant day at the beach. “My head is killing me. I think I need to take a little nap.”

“But we have to rescue Grandma. Elsa said her agent has her. Over there,” he said while pointing to Cairo.

“Never make it. Bridge is out, and we'll never swim directly across this fast-moving river unless we run miles upriver first. I'm not feeling like a run or a swim at the moment, either.” She held her hand on her bloody head to staunch the wound.

The rattle of gunfire was continuous on the far side of the river. Through the fleet of barges parked up and down both sides of the river he watched as a ferry captain ran his ship ashore at the southern tip of the town. Military vehicles piled on, along with what he hoped was a suitable contingent of soldiers and other survivors from the town. While he was conducting his failed rescue of the sleepers in the boat, someone was getting it done over there.

“At least they're getting out.” He pointed to the ferry.

“Maybe Grandma's on it?”

“I don't know. I wish we could ask the Quantum computer.”

When he heard himself ask the question, he tried to access it by thinking of it. He didn't know how else to do it. Though nothing happened, he had a sense he was on the right track.

“Maybe it only works when Grandma is around?”

“Oh. You mean she's moving away from us?”

Victoria grabbed his knee, pulling him close so they sat hip to hip.

“We're alive. Thanks to you. She's alive, too. No one is going to hurt her. She's too valuable.” She faced him, though blood ran from a small gash above her ear. “If she's being held prisoner by the most powerful government agency left, I'd say, in a weird way, she's safe for now, you know? Liam, we know what we have to do. Al told us. We have to go find where that real computer is running.”

“And what will that tell us?”

“Who's behind all of this. Whoever made that virus obviously has access to advanced technology. Maybe there's some biotech firm that discovered the cure to Cancer or whatever, and they're sitting on that cure because it accidentally cured all other diseases. Maybe they wouldn't want to cure everything at once? Al said as much.”

He admired her spirit.

“Wow. I thought I was the one who cooked up conspiracies,” he said with a chuckle.

“I saw what you asked the computer,” she said while smiling.

The most important question was one he'd thought up in the moment. He wanted to know where Elsa's greatest enemy—his Grandma Rose—was hiding. Now that Elsa was dead, he wasn't going to assume everything would suddenly return to peaceful mode. The zombies were out there, getting stronger day after day. The Operation Renew convoy was still heading for St. Louis, with all the military units left from the East Coast along with millions of survivors. Elsa said she was in line to become president of the United States. That's why she wanted Grandma Rose out of the way. But he had to suspect she was more involved with the virus itself.

“Where's my Grandma?”

“Not that one,” she said with bright eyes and a smile.

“I asked it where your parents are hiding.”

“The answer was the same for both, wasn't it?”

“Pretty close. Both are in Colorado.”

“If they have Grandma, maybe it will help to be so far away from her. That way they can't make her operate the Quantum computer and tell them where we are. Or where it is. They'll never figure out where we went.”

He wasn't so sure. Drones hovered above the water, like they were lost. If Elsa was dead, maybe it was over.

“What do you think Al meant by non-linear time? Is that like time travel, or something?” he asked, while watching the water.

“I have no idea. Hans seemed to think this all began during the Spanish Flu in nineteen-whatever a hundred years ago. That seems to add up in a strange way. I guess we'll know when we find it.”

Colorado, here we come.

Even as he sat there thinking, the drones seemed to perk up. They all began going upriver, out of Cairo. He turned that way to see a gigantic cloud of dust envelope the shore up that way. Like a herd of cattle arriving at the watering hole.

“Liam, look. I saw that cloud on the way in.” Victoria pointed the way he faced. “Come on. We have to go.”

She took off up the bank—in the opposite direction. The drones weren't just going up the river; they were also coming across the waterway. Toward him.

No, toward their dead leader.

“I wish I could kill you over and over,” he said to her body.

Then, as with so many of his adventures, he ran. He couldn't help watch Victoria's fancy jeans as she scrambled up the rocky shore toward the treeline.

“Eyes forward, mister,” she laughed, somehow knowing he was already drawn that way.

He felt hope return. He had his running partner again.

Epilogue

Twenty-one days since the sirens.

Lana woke up with a wet cough. She'd washed ashore after falling in the river tied to her dead husband. The very thought of it made her shiver, no matter the heat of the new day.

The start of her journey was chaotic as she and Jerry floated between the parked barges or got sucked underneath them. The current carried them ever downriver, ensuring all she needed to do was hold her breath and keep kicking her feet. Soon the barges of Cairo fell far behind.

Eventually, her hands broke free of the zip ties. That's when the real fight began—against the current. She paddled until nightfall, unable to get out of the main channel. Once it got dark, and exhausted beyond words, she gripped some driftwood and let the river take her where it would. Sleep finally took her—until she ran aground.

“Liam,” she thought. “Please be OK.”

When she fell from the barge—out of his sight—she fought to keep her distance from “it” as the dead man flailed in the water with her. The thing that her husband had become—a zombie—had no traces left of the loving person he once was. The father of her only son.

Elsa had them together in that speedboat all the way from St. Louis, and that was enough of a hell for her. Jerry had been chained to the decking, but his vacant eyes and mud-stained and blackened skin were haunting echoes of his former life. She desperately wanted to know how it was possible to dig up a dead man and bring him back to half-life, but she had no interest in talking to Elsa. Several volunteer Polar Bears had helped her get back to her son in Forest Park, only to be greeted in an ambush by the crazy woman and her strike team.

Those four men and women were dead because of her.

Liam is going to die because of me too. I lost him.

“Cut yourself some slack,” she argued with herself, “keeping tabs on Liam was never easy, even before this sickness struck.” In fact, she and Jerry had spent the better part of the last six months arguing with him over his behavior. While Liam did fine in school, he often blew off homework so he could hang out with his friends. Computers. Tablets. Texting. Every distraction she could think of that drove a mother insane—he was into it. Everything but school work.

At least he wasn't into drugs.

That gave her some comfort, but online games were their own kind of addiction. The event that drove Liam out of the house involved gaming—he'd spent the night at a friend's house, but neglected to tell anyone where he'd gone. After a night of alternately crying in fear that he'd hurt himself and screaming in anger that he did it on purpose to hurt them, she and Jerry were ready for war. When Liam walked through the front door the next morning as if nothing had happened, she snapped.

They grounded him. Took away his laptop. Tried to make his life miserable. His response was that he'd go to the library and play his game. No big deal.

After much yelling and anger, she “woke up” at the back window of the house holding his laptop. She'd been thinking about throwing it through the glass. His apparent lack of concern over anything made punishing him impossible.

Getting him out of her sight was the only solution. She was ever thankful Jerry handled the logistics with Grandma Marty so that she could stay out of it. Her love was absolute, of course, but her anger flared up from depths previously unknown. She wanted him gone—just for a while.

And she'd felt guilty from the moment he'd walked out.

Day after day she argued with Jerry to let him come back. And each time he would respond that his time away would do everyone some good. Liam would realize what it was like to live without mom and dad to cater to his every need, and they would get some much-needed peace and quiet for the summer. They could recharge batteries for the start of school in the fall.

She wanted to go visit him at Grandmas, but Jerry insisted that would only diminish the punishment. He cut a deal with her that they would go see him on his birthday.

The sirens killed the world before that meeting could take place.

So much time wasted on arguing.

The disputes with Liam were trying enough, but she'd also argued too much with Jerry. Their disagreement over “visiting rights” with Liam had driven a wedge between them. The crevice widened after it became clear Liam and Grandma had gone out into the city. It all happened because she'd sent him away.

“I'm so sorry Jer. I wasted our last days together being mad at you. I should have spent my time telling you how much I loved you.”

Their relationship was more a brushfire of tension and small arguments than all out war, but maybe that would have been better. One big battle to get it all over and done with.

The weak consolation was that she'd forgiven him before he passed away from his infection. That was too late to matter, though.

And here at her rock, she was utterly alone. There was no sign of Cairo. Not even any barges. She wanted to believe Liam could have survived Elsa, but she was completely in control. It was unlikely he did.

“I'm going to find out,” she said to the water.

She cautiously rose to her feet and took a few tentative steps through the shallow water near the bank. Something pulled hard at her right leg, making her hop in surprise.

“Oh no,” she said as she remembered what was attached to her.

The rope was longer than it seemed while they were swimming. About ten feet by the looks of it. Jerry's leg was tied on the other end, and his body had wedged into some larger rocks just out of the water. She figured wave action pushed him out.

“You have to do it, Lana.” The words gave her courage as she got close enough to touch the blade in his side. With the burly knife, she could put the zombie down for good.

She gripped it and her heart rumbled to life. Her breathing increased, and she lost herself in tunnel vision.

“He's already dead, Lana.”

The face was hidden—a fact for which she was glad—but it seemed to be sleeping on a big rock. His skin had cleaned up considerably in the water. The dirt and discoloration of the grave had been washed away. Dirty or not, it could flip over and bite her in two seconds. She steeled herself for the final act of their marriage.

“I love you, Jerry. Goodbye.”

She was pulling at the knife when the zombie spoke.

“I love you, too.”

###

Musings of an Author

Thank you for reading Zombies Ever After! This is the sixth book of my young writing career. Book 7 in the Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series is yet to be named, but will be released in 2017.

Have a second? Please rate this book. It really helps independent authors such as myself. Just don't give away any of the secrets!

I hope you'll return for the next installment. Sign up to the E.E. Isherwood mailing list so you'll know when it arrives.

Thank you, as always, for spending time in my world.

E.E. Isherwood, September 6, 2016

About the Author

E. E. Isherwood has penned two books about post-apocalyptic driving, six books about zombies, and several short stories from both genres. He has designs for many more tales. His long-time fascination with the end of the world blossomed decades ago after reading the 1949 classic Earth Abides. Zombies are just a handy vehicle which allows him to observe how society breaks down in the face of such withering calamity. Fast cars can also help it along.

Isherwood lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and family. He stays deep in a bunker with steepled fingers, always awaiting the arrival of the first wave of zombies.

Find him online at www.zombiebooks.net.

Books by E.E. Isherwood

E.E. Isherwood currently has six books in the Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse universe. He also has a series of high-octane post-apocalyptic stories called the Revolutions Per Mile series. Visit his website at www.zombiebooks.net to be informed when future titles are launched.

The Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series

Since the Sirens

Siren Songs

Stop the Sirens

Last Fight of the Valkyries

Zombies vs. Polar Bears

Zombies Ever After

***

Book 1: Since the Sirens [BUY ON KINDLE]

When 15-year-old Liam goes to stay with his ancient great-grandmother for the summer, he immediately becomes bored around the frail and elderly woman. He spends most of his time at the library texting friends, playing video games, and reading dark novels. But one morning stroll changes everything as the Zombie Apocalypse unloads itself directly into his life. Now he and his 104-year-old guardian must survive the journey out of the collapsing city of St. Louis while zombies, plague, and desperate survivors swirl around them.

Book 2: Siren Songs [BUY ON KINDLE]

After escaping the chaos of the collapsing city, teens Liam and Victoria are faced with a difficult choice. Do they try to find Liam’s parents or defend their suburban home from refugees and the infected? They find new allies to hold things together, even as the government appears increasingly impotent in the face of a mutating virus. And why is a representative of the CDC trying to enlist Liam’s 104-year-old grandma to his cause?

Book 3: Stop the Sirens [BUY ON KINDLE]

Liam and his parents are reunited at last, but the matriarch of their family has been taken to a covert CDC location for medical experiments. Liam wants to mount a rescue operation, but they must first reach a refuge, endure warring government agencies, and learn Grandma’s location—not to mention survive a world awash in zombies. With Victoria at his side, Liam finds his fortitude bolstered by her faith. Together they begin to unravel the mystery of the zombie plague.

Book 4: Last Fight of the Valkyries [BUY ON KINDLE]

Liam, Marty, and Victoria are rescued from St. Louis. Now safely in the defenses of the town of Cairo, IL, they are once again free to look ahead—into the headwinds of the Zombie Apocalypse. Liam is separated from his parents, Mel and Phil are missing, and Grandma's status as a sane person is very much in doubt in their new town. But when Liam finally realizes what's on the chip given to him by Colonel McMurphy, he sees the way forward. Always with an eye toward saving civilization, he takes his first steps in that direction.

Book 5: Zombies vs. Polar Bears [BUY ON KINDLE]

Liam is more resolved than ever to solve the mystery behind the zombie plague. He now has several clues—some gleaned at great personal cost—about the zombies, although he remains unsure who's behind the creation of the plague. Was it the secretive National Internal Security division as he was originally told, or was it the Patriot Snowball movement as reported by remaining government officials? Everyone has an opinion, but the truth might lurk within his own family. Meanwhile, Grandma Marty remains in Cairo, Illinois. She is confused by her strange dreams by night, and afraid of what she hears over the great defensive levees of the town by day.

Book 6: Zombies Ever After [BUY ON KINDLE]

"Operation Renew America" is the massive convoy escaping the desolation of the East Coast. As it nears St. Louis, the Polar Bears gear up for a fight. There are tanks in the streets of St. Louis. Combat aircraft buzz the Arch. But Liam wants none of that. His heart is smitten by Victoria, and, though he knows it sounds corny, he wants to get back to her and continue the quest for the cure by her side. But Victoria meets an old foe during her time alone at her University. When Liam returns, and when he finds out where she's gone, his mission becomes very simple: pursue the girl he loves. Along the way he has to ask whether there is anything close to a storybook ending inside the Zombie Apocalypse.

OTHER TITLES

The Revolutions Per Mile series

A new series of driving adventures from post-apocalyptic author E.E. Isherwood.

Book 1: Post Apocalyptic Ponies [BUY ON KINDLE]

When the world ended, Perth Hopkins was one of the lucky few. She jumped in her father's sports car and drove like a girl possessed to escape the nuclear fires. Today, years later, she drives as a high-speed courier between the small farming towns in the breadbasket of a new nation. She's learning the rules of the road in the safe interior—the pony pastures—but she craves the speed and danger of the interstate. Those routes are run by the older girls... When one of those girls shows up in her life, she's forced to consider whether she really wants to see what's over the distant horizon.

Book 2: Post Apocalyptic Mustangs [BUY ON KINDLE]

Perth is tossed into the high-speed world of "The 70." Interstate 70 was once a major artery across the United States, but what's left of it in Kansas has become a dangerous route traversed by brave couriers carrying pieces of the Old World between the surviving towns. Perth's driver, Jo, claims she is the best of the best of the couriers remaining on the highway and she wants to introduce Perth to how things work by doing a simple run from Hays to Salina. But Perth quickly suspects she's been seduced into being her co-pilot for an entirely different destination.

###

All these books are self-published. Self-publishing runs on word of mouth. Your review on the product page is that word. It's like fresh blood to my zombies. It keeps them going. It makes them stronger. At the risk of hurting a horse, I'll mention once more to please consider taking a few moments to pen a brief review of my book on Amazon. Just a few words of encouragement will help me write many more adventures.

Review or not, you've already shown your support when you invested your time and treasure in this tome. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for purchasing and reading Zombies Ever After.

E.E. Isherwood

Connect with E. E. Isherwood

Thank you for being a reader of my work. I value your support more than I can say. I also love interacting with fans. To contact me, yell at me, become a beta reader, or find more stories about the end of everything, look for me online:

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