Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Since the Sirens (34 page)

“Well I'm not just going to drive the train right by my
people. We're stopping for as long as it takes to pick them up. Be
ready in five minutes.”

Liam and Victoria moved out onto the platform around the engine.
Liam gave her a devilish smile.

“You know, we could just run back along all the cars while
we're moving.”

“Uh no thanks. One fall and you'd be dead. The zombies would
catch you before you could climb back on. Assuming you don't get
yourself cut in half by the wheels.”

“Well it works in the movies. But I guess you're right.
We'll wait until the train stops and then run back on the ground.”

“'Bout time you listened to me.” Victoria was smiling
at him.

The pair had a few moments to wait while the train ground it's way
through the beginnings of the wooded park. A steep cliff was on the
right side of the train, but they were currently looking off the left
side, out over the river. Things had happened so fast today Liam was
unable to process it.

Speaking loudly over the dragging created by the front engine,
Liam asked “Do you think Jones made it? Maybe it wasn't that
far down?” He didn't know what answer he wanted to hear. That
he was still alive but surrounded by endless zombies. Or that he died
quickly and heroically.

Victoria was unusually dour in her response.

“I don't know. But I think we're all gonna die out here.
Maybe not on this train, but out in this new horrible world we've
entered. I know I shouldn't say it. I don't want to say it. But it's
how I feel after everything we've seen. Even my prayers feel
hopeless.”

She took a deep breath before continuing. “A few days ago,
before the plague, before we met, I almost wanted to die. Now I've
found I want to live, but we may all die anyway. You know?”

Liam didn't know how to answer. The exhaustion was returning as
they stood there doing nothing.

“Well I think we're going to make it. And I'll tell you
something else, Grandma is going to make it too. You and I will make
sure of that!”

He turned to her and became serious. “I want you to stay
here because I'm coming right back as soon as I get Grandma squared
away. We have to stay up here so we know what's going on. She'll be
fine now that we are away from that big crowd of zombies.”

He didn't mention part of his request was so that he wouldn't have
to worry about her
and
Grandma in the back. He wanted her up
in the engine where she'd at least have some protection. In a perfect
world he'd get Grandma up into the engine as well, but without her
wheelchair or walker to move her, he didn't want to risk having her
on the ground if the train started moving again.

As the train decelerated, Liam was ready. When it had nearly
stopped he was off and running.

“I'll be right back!”

Victoria, fading behind him, shouted, “GOOD LUCK!”

2

Liam approached the rear car to the sound of gun shots. He saw
there were some live—dead—infected still doing their work
up on the car. Only a few shooters were alive on the flat car and
they were cleaning up as best they could. Many of the survivors had
poured off as soon as the train slowed down. They were climbing other
cars near the back.

Grandma was there. Still under the truck axle. Still alive among a
gaggle of frazzled survivors.

“Hi Liam. Lovely day we're having. Looks like rain.”

Grandma had a dry sense of humor. The sky was perfectly clear, but
the whole world was in a storm right now.

“Yeah sure. Glad you are in such good spirits. I was worried
sick!”

“You left me in good hands. Though we lost a lot of good
people back here.”

Liam climbed up, then under the trailer so he could be next to
her. He gave her a hug.

While they chatted about the weather Liam grabbed some water from
his backpack and shared it with her. He did the same with some small
grain bars. He also reloaded his gun and dumped a ton of the small
shells into his pockets so he'd never run out of ammo again while in
an emergency.

While they watched, the last of the zombies were cleared from
their rail car by the few remaining gun handlers. Liam shouted his
thanks. Everyone that hadn’t moved to other cars was sitting or
standing in a small area near the front of the flatcar. The back half
was now tainted with lots of blood.

“They are picking someone up and then the train will be
moving again very quickly.”

Liam looked over his shoulder to see if they were being followed.
Of course they were. The front of the zombie wave from the nearby
quarry was slowly coming around the corner. Still several minutes
behind them. Inexorably moving their way.

Liam grabbed his radio from his backpack.

“This is Liam. We have to move the train. The horde will be
here in minutes. Over.”

Silence on the radio.

Is this thing on?

He tried a few more times and still got no response. The train
hadn't moved either. He thought angrily of every movie he'd ever seen
where the radio goes out at the most inopportune time. He couldn't
fathom how his own radio would similarly fail at his most desperate
hour.

“Grandma, will you be OK back here? I have to run up front
and tell them to move this thing.”

“I'm not going anywhere. I'm comfortable under here.”

Liam grabbed his backpack this time, and slid out from under the
trailer, then off the flat deck. He gave Grandma one quick look,
waved to her, then dashed away.

More zombies were coming into view.

He absently wondered how far he'd run today. He was sprinting once
again. He spotted Victoria as he rounded the halfway point of the
train. There was a slight curve in the track, turning to the right.

She was a mess. Bruised face. Hair was as wild as a cave girl.
Dress was torn in several places. Legs and arms were coal-covered and
sweat-covered from exertion. Liam thought she looked like an obsidian
angel. Dark and beautiful.

“Get your buns up here!”

With a foul mouth.

He climbed aboard and she gave him a warm hug.

“I thought you'd been taken.”

“I've only been gone a couple minutes.”

“Seemed like you were gone for a half hour. I'm sorry I have
a horrible sense of time. I have no watch.”

“Let's get inside. We have to get the train moving again.”

They moved in to find the engineer.

She wasn't there.

On the other side of the train they saw here below, unloading an
SUV near the front of the broken engine. There were several kids, a
man who must have been her husband, and an older woman who may have
been a relative of some kind. They were all carrying flats of bottled
water, pillows and sundries for the kids, and several guns. They were
piling everything on the end of the platform where Liam was standing.
He moved to help put the gear inside the engine where it would be
protected. Victoria did the same.

While hurrying the move along, Liam stated “We have to move!
There are zombies almost at the back of the train again.”

He didn't hear gunshots yet, which would be the telltale sign
trouble had arrived.

To his relief, the man clambered onto the engine, and ran past him
into the compartment. To no one in particular he yelled out, “I
snapped the brake lines on the dead engine. It has a broken gearbox.
We can open her up now.”

Once inside the compartment he went to work spinning up the
engine. The horn rang out multiple times, each time a long
three-second blast. No mistaking it was time to leave.

The kids came up next. Two young boys, about nine or ten years
old, both dressed in jeans and sweatshirts—like they were
trying to wear some protection from the biters. Liam thought it might
backfire given the heat of the days of June, but said nothing.

Last up was the woman engineer and her older friend. Once aboard
the she ran into the compartment and shouted “ABOARD!”

Shots rang out in the back just as they lurched forward.

As promised, the man was the actual engineer of this train. The
engine was humming at fever pitch as he tried to get them up to a
fast cruising speed. After many hours of running along at
near-to-walking pace, it felt like they were on a bullet train. They
were still pushing the dead engine, but it was no longer sparking and
thundering. They were free of that problem and the powerful engine
hit its stride quickly, pulling nothing but empty cars behind.

“This is amazing!” Liam shouted.

Liam had just enough time to celebrate feeling the wind in his
hair with Victoria as they hung on to the side rails—when the
train hit the brakes hard and began a screeching deceleration.

What now?

3

As they slowed down Liam saw the problem ahead. There was a
railway bridge over the Meramec River very near to where that river
meets the much larger Mississippi River. Directly on the other side,
right where they needed to go, was a roadblock of several emergency
services vehicles along with the real showstopper—a large
construction crane dangling a massive wrecking ball right in the
middle of the tracks.

The superhero part of Liam's brain tried to run the numbers on
whether the train could plow through all that stuff and survive, but
it came up with bad news. The engineer likely ran the same numbers
and came up with the same answer as well. They had to stop.

The dead engine slid to a stop just short of the beginning of the
span. To their immediate right was a large facility with three huge
smoke stacks. The huge piles of coal told Liam it was a power plant.
This was the place he could see from near his own house. From where
they sat now, they could see lots of police and fire units on the
other side of the bridge. There were also several men standing in the
middle, shotguns in hand—the message was clear: this was the
end of the line.

“Well what do we do now?” Liam was always looking for
the answers.

The male engineer spoke up.

“These guys again! The City of Arnold is on the other side
of that river. They have closed all the bridges into their
jurisdiction, including Interstate 55, which is where we tried to
cross two days ago. That is when I called Tatia here and told her to
try to reach my train and bring it south so I could meet her. I was
hopeful they hadn't blocked this route, though I should have known
better.”

They all looked around and noticed a few handfuls of people
huddled in the bushes and trees as near as possible to the bridge.
There were other people moving by the power plant. They weren't
coming out to greet the train. More likely they were watching this
new development at the blockade. If those people weren't being
allowed to cross, what hope did Liam's group have?

The engineer paced around a bit. Then spoke to his wife.

“Is there any way we can back up the train and cross
downtown? Is it still open?

She shook her head no.

“There are some routes through the city we might be able to
use, but I bet they all end just like this one. No one wants to let
any of us city folk come into their turf.”

Liam considered his options. He looked at Victoria for strength
and then had an idea.

“Victoria and I will go talk to people guarding the bridge.
We'll see if they are letting anyone across. Maybe they just don't
want the train to cross?”

It was a lame excuse he knew, but he wasn't running on much sleep.
He very much did want to talk to them so he could figure out what he
should do next to protect Grandma and Victoria. He thought of finding
a boat. Maybe swimming across in secret to get something that floats
so he could get Grandma across on that. Maybe they could wade across
at some point. He knew the river got shallow in lots of places. There
was a solution.

Hayes, who had been in the background during most of the recent
action and discussions agreed with Liam. He offered his services as a
CDC employee to try to help get them across.

Liam knew this was Hayes' plan since they were all on the JB
bridge, but he couldn't very well stop the man from walking with him.
The engineers and their family were content to wait in the safety of
the engine.

A couple of the police officers had dismounted from the train and
wanted to meet on the bridge as well—but Hayes was very
persuasive, arguing he was their most senior government official and
could get them across. Too many new people would constitute a threat
for the people over the river. Better to take it slow...

Liam said nothing to that. It could very well be true.

The trio started walking out onto the bridge.

“I guess you two never leave each other's sides huh?”

“So what. What's it to you?” Victoria spoke as she
raised her hands high in the face of the police ahead.

“No need to get snippy. Just making small talk.”

“That's far enough!”

They stopped about fifty feet from the officers in the middle of
the bridge.

“By order of the Mayor of Arnold, Missouri, you are ordered
to turn around and return to the safety of your homes.”

Liam had a thought. He spoke softly to Hayes.

“I'm from Imperial. It's just south of Arnold. They might
let a local through.”

“It's OK kid. I got this.”

“I'm Doctor Hayes and I work for the CDC. I'm under direct
order of the President of the United States. I order you to allow me
to proceed on foot to complete my duties relating to this pandemic!”

The officers actually laughed.

“Congratulations! You just won me fifty bucks. I bet sarge
here one of you would pull that 'I'm with the government'
bull
.”

“I can prove it. I have ID!” He pulled out his wallet
and waved it in the air.

“No thanks. We aren't taking any chances with that
Ebola-crap flying around.”

“Don't you idiots know the plague is everywhere? It's
already on your side of the river. I guarantee it.”