Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Since the Sirens (28 page)

Victoria didn't respond verbally, but she smiled broadly at him
and removed one of the straps of her dress, letting it fall off her
shoulder. It revealed just a little more of her... Liam was pleased
to see the shimmer of her gown was now drifting in his direction.

Now Liam was panting. He knew it was wrong to behave like an—an
animal—but he felt no insecurities and was reveling in it.

And to prove it he shouted, “Victoria I'm yours!”

“What?” Victoria was by his side, shaking him
violently.

“Liam, wake up!”

He woke up, unsure what had just happened.

“Oh Liam. Really?” Victoria seemed pretty angry, but
she made the “be quiet” sign repeatedly with her finger
as if to make this situation go away.

Liam glanced over to where dream-Victoria was previously standing.
No Victoria. Instead, to his utter horror was a similarly-shaped
blood-drenched teenage girl. It appeared as if someone threw buckets
of the stuff on her. She was wearing—

No, that can't be.

—a pink nightgown beneath all the blood. And she was moving
in his direction. Lots of “them” on the far side of their
train car were heading his way now.

“It's not possible.” Liam said it to himself, but he
wanted Victoria at least to hear him say it. “I was
dreaming.”Almost at the same time, Liam heard a train horn
blowing loudly, not far away. An engine was spinning up. A few
moments later, as Liam was trying desperately to decide how they were
going to hide from the wandering pack of zombies, a repetitive “bang
bang bang” sound got closer and closer to them. When the train
car behind them banged, Liam knew what it was. The train was starting
to move and the noise came from each car catching and pulling the car
behind it. The final “bang” happened seconds later, and
the whole train was in motion.

How long would it take for the wanderers to find their way around
the end of the train currently concealing them? The moving train—the
second row of cars from the perspective of the zombies—was
clearly visible for ten or so cars to the rear of the shorter train.
That gave them plenty of movement to draw their attention.

There was no question how it would go down. They would wander over
to the moving train, then be deflected in the direction it was
moving, and finally pushed into the humans standing there with dumb
looks on their faces at the impossibility of it all.

Liam shook his head.

That is NOT going to happen.

He looked at the moving train, then formulated his plan.

He immediately hated it, but a good plan now was better than a
perfect plan tomorrow. Thank you General Patton!

4

No sense being quiet.

“Jones, we need your help.”

The big man looked around. He didn't have family—what was
that story?—with him so didn't have to run up the corridor to
tend to his own.

“Sure, what you gonna do kid?”

He moved over to him and shared his plan in a hurried voice. When
he had laid it all out Jones made a whistling sound as if impressed.

“Victoria. Help Grandma out of the chair please.”

Liam went and picked up his backpack and put it on his back. He
then folded the chair down in several fluid motions—he was
getting good at it.

Then they waited.

The moving train was about twenty cars long, with at least one
engine pulling it as best Liam could tell from his position. Most of
the cars were empty coal tenders—Liam recognized them because
he saw coal carriers all the time along the rail line where he lived,
which happened to be near a coal-fired power plant. There were also a
few liquid-haulers and two flatbed cars, both with tractor-trailers
on their backs. One of the flatbeds had already passed. The other was
the very last car. That was their target. Grandma couldn't very well
run and catch the first one. She wasn't going to be climbing ladders
to get up on the coal cars either.

The rest of the group of police and gang members was jumping onto
whatever cars were closest. Liam couldn't see the entire group in the
black of the night, but he suspected they all had the same idea. He
wanted to make sure.

“EVERYONE JUMP THE TRAIN!”

The zombies were rounding the corner and knew people were in the
darkness. Liam saw the flatbed car was arriving at just the right
moment. The train was still moving slowly, like it was taking its
time feeling through the gloom ahead. Liam began to wonder if it
would be
too
slow, and whether those dead people might also
climb on board. That would ruin everything.

Grandma was being supported by Victoria while Liam grabbed the big
wheelchair. He'd been handling it for a couple days now and he knew
it had some heft to it, but he was surprised to find he could barely
lift it. As Jones let loose with the first shell, he tried to heft
the thing up onto the passing flatcar.

He did manage to get it into the air, but it was a horribly placed
toss that careened off the side of the car, then fell into the rocks
next to the tracks. He made a judgment based on the weight of the
wheelchair and the speed of the train and decided to let it go.
Instead, he jumped onto the small ladder near the front of the
flatcar, and climbed up.

Liam watched as several zombies were closing in on Jones. He had
already shot three or four times and knocked down the infected with
each shot, but there were too many. Liam needed Jones more than
anyone right now.

He looked at Victoria and Grandma and told them to walk with the
train as fast as they could. They immediately began moving, not
wanting to be any closer to the arriving plague than necessary.

Liam ran to the back of the flatcar, which was also the back of
the train. Jones was backpedaling as fast as he could, firing a
couple more shots, and then reaching into his pants pocket to grab
more shells.

Liam decided to get out his own gun and see if he could help. He
threw off the safety and kept the gun in a low ready position while
he looked for easy targets. He knew he could hit just about any of
the zombies in his immediate vicinity, but to be effective with the
little gun he needed a clean shot to the head. That took a little
more planning.

“Jones you have to run, Grandma is walking up the line!”

Jones was in the middle of a reload when one walker got too close
to ignore. The big man took the butt of the shotgun and in one smooth
motion used it to bash in the face of the infected woman.

He seemed pleased he was able to so easily dispatch her, but the
arrival of a half a dozen others tempered his celebratory spirit. He
finished putting in a last shell, racked it, but then used the sling
to throw it over his shoulder, and started running back up the line.

Liam was left alone for the moment on the tail of the train. He
could have easily started shooting, but held off. Instead, he started
screaming at them.

“I'm right here you stupid somnambulistic sum' bee-otches!
Come and get me!”

I read too much dark fiction.

He started to scream and whistle and make as much noise as he
could. It had the intended effect. Most of the pursuit moved in his
direction, rather than try to follow Jones up between the trains.

Soon he was a pied piper with fifteen or twenty infected in the
wake of the train. He was able to turn around and watch the front of
the flatcar.

He saw Victoria and Jones swap positions so he could help Grandma
along. Victoria then climbed up the moving ladder. She went to sit
down on the edge of the car, facing Jones. The big man picked up
Grandma between both arms and fast-walked a few paces ahead of
Victoria. He planted his feet and started swinging her backward, then
forward, backward again, and then he swung her forward with enough
force he was able to gingerly toss her up onto the car, right into
Victoria's lap and a companion bear hug. She then rolled backward
just enough to ensure Grandma wouldn't fall back off. She was safe.
She even giggled at the spectacle of the whole thing.

Jones ran ahead again and jumped up on the ladder himself, easily
gaining the flat surface. From there he was able to help a few
stragglers who were unable to mount the coal car ahead of them.
Several times he just leaned over and grabbed their arms and pulled
them up.

As they solidified their position on the back of the train, they
rolled by the body of one of the police officers who was injured
earlier in the day. As far as Liam could tell, he was the only person
from their group who didn't survive this hasty exit.

Looking back, he had a wave of inexplicable sadness for the sick
people behind them. Each of them were normal, healthy humans only a
few days ago. Each had a family and many stories to tell about who
they were and what they wanted out of life. This disease, plague,
whatever it was called, had brought ruin to them and made it
necessary for good people to engage in horrific acts of violence. He
felt sorry to be a part of that violence, sorry they were dead, but
if he was true to himself he was also very glad to have the tools and
the friends to stay alive in this dark time.

He looked at his sports watch. The glow function allowed him to
see the time was 4:15am.

We survived for one more night.

Or do I have to see sunrise for it to count?

They had only just cracked the surface of the yard when they
arrived from the north. Now, sitting on the train rolling through the
yard, he was able to get a sense of how big the place really was. He
estimated there were hundreds of cars sitting on dozens of rail
lines, in a confusing jumble of single cars, strings of cars, and
scattered engines.

Many of the stationary train cars had frightened people hiding in
them. As Liam's train moved by, the hidden people would spring out
and try to jump on to the one train that appeared to be going
somewhere. It was still moving slow enough that the jump wasn't
excessively dangerous, but with zombies in the wake of the train you
didn't want to blow your chances. Most people made it on, though a
few people tried and failed on cars ahead of them and thus ended up
on the final car with Liam. One man—possibly a little tipsy
from drugs or alcohol—blew his chance on every ladder he
encountered, and was only saved because Jones pulled him up at the
very end of the last car while arms from the dark reached for him.

By the time they'd left the bulk of the yard, they had perhaps
twenty new people with them.

Grandma was sitting with her back against a tire of one of the
tractor-trailers parked on the bed surface. Victoria was sitting with
her.

“You two look comfortable,” and then remembering his
recent flub throw of the chair he said, “I'm sorry I lost your
chair. It was a lot heavier than I thought it would be.”

“I'm just thankful you thought to get me up here with Jones'
help. I'll do alright without my chair. Don't spend time worrying on
me.”

Victoria was smiling at Liam, as best she could given the state of
her facial injuries.

“Why are you so happy?”

“Well it isn't because of what you screamed back there.”
But Liam thought he saw a hint of a smile on her face. Even if he
imagined it, he felt better thinking it. “No, you got us out of
another tough spot. By my count that makes ohhh, about 100 times
you've saved my life in the past two days. Thank you.”

“Well I got us into the mess, so I had to get us out too.”

He tried to laugh it all off, but was ready to move on.

Victoria apparently wanted to move on as well. “So where do
you think we're going?”

“There are tracks down this bank of the Mississippi River
all the way through the suburbs of St. Louis. I think we can ride
this out of the city. I think they even go close to my house.
Wouldn't that make things simple?”

“But we aren't moving very fast.”

“True. It beats walking though!”

Liam looked toward the front of the train and noticed a couple
disturbing things. First, something up there was throwing sparks in
all directions on the train tracks. Second, whatever was causing
those sparks was also causing a horrific grinding and screeching
sound. Taken together, it appeared the train was pushing a rolling
lightning and thunder show.

That should be wonderful at drawing zombies to us.

Still, they were moving. They were safe for the moment. Liam
cautiously imagined things were finally looking up for them.

He moved over to Jones.

“Thank you for drawing those zombies off me. That was some
quick thinking.”

“Call it even for your help getting my Grandma to safety.
Where do you think this train will take us?”

“Dunno. I live and patrol north of here, so I'm not familiar
with the part of town we're in now, or where we might go. I've always
heard it was a safer beat down here south of St. Louis, but looking
at it now, I'm not so sure.”

Liam didn't know the big man well enough to judge if he was
joshing him.

“I do wish we could communicate with the engineer. We could
just ask.”

That seemed to jog his memory because he pulled out his radio and
made a call.

“Jones here. Anyone have any idea where this engine is
pulling us? Over.”

They waited for a few minutes and only heard one curt response of
“No idea.”

“Not very talkative tonight.”

“No, we got beat up pretty bad. Losing the captain like
that. Losing all the others. Rough day.”

Liam had nothing to add.

He took a seat well away from the car's edge and watched the world
go by. In the dark it was difficult to see landmarks or guess where
they were, but they were moving so slow he had no illusions they had
gone very far. In fact, they were going so slow many of the zombies
were following behind them now, or coming out of the darkness from
the city-side of the tracks. Those would often try to grab for the
train only to find themselves bounced along until the train went by.
A few found themselves falling between the train cars, and a couple
were even halved when they were run over.