Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Since the Sirens (4 page)

His attention was once again focused on the screen. The cause of
the outage already a distant memory.

2

Another hour had gone by before he came back into awareness of
what was happening in the real world. The lights were flashing, as if
the library was closing.

Did I play all day already?

He knew it was impossible, but the flashing lights always meant
the day was over. He looked for a window to confirm the presence of
daylight.

The day was going off the script.

Without haste, he messaged his friend in-game to let him know he
had to drop out. The library was apparently shutting down early
today. His friend responded with an expletive-laden tirade suggesting
Liam tell the library to stick something illicit in a dark orifice.

With a chuckle he stood up and stretched.

Then the power went off, killing the dull fluorescents on the
ceiling of the entire building.

His only thought was he was glad he exited the game cleanly. His
character was safe in his stronghold until he returned to the game
tomorrow, next week, or next year. If the power went out while he was
in battle, he would have lost all his loot and would have returned to
his stronghold with nothing. It was a major downer to have to start
from scratch after such an event.

Instead of moving toward the exit, he texted his friend a long
message about a portion of the adventure they'd just experienced. He
looked forwarding to getting back together so he could check out some
new weapons he'd picked up while they were fighting the beasts.

But when he hit send he got another 'network busy' message. He
slammed his phone on the laminate table a bit harder than he wanted.

This blows.

That's when he stood up, finally getting frustrated at the
intrusions of the world upon his game time. He grabbed his
backpack—containing his extra laptop he kept for those times
when the library computers were filled with other patrons—and
moved toward the exit.

When he arrived at the glass doors he saw the librarian standing,
looking outward in silence.

“Ma'am, what happened to the power? Is the library going to
be open tomorrow?”

Turning around, she looked at him like he was crazy. Liam could
see she'd been crying. It was an unmistakable puffiness combined with
smeared makeup.

“Don't you know what's going on?”

“Yeah, the power went out.”

“Not that. I mean with the city. With Ebola. With
zombies
.”

Liam looked past her. Everything appeared normal; he really
couldn't identify anything unusual in his field of view. He noticed
nothing out of the ordinary when he walked in this morning, so he had
no help there. And zombies? That was the craziest thing he'd ever
heard. What would some librarian know about zombies?

“I don't see anything unusual.”

“Don't you listen to the news? NPR? Anything?”

“My dad says NPR is run by the government so you can't trust
anything they say.” Liam was content to believe his dad on this
point, because the few times he did listen to NPR he was bored to
tears. His conclusion was anything that boring had to be propaganda.

“Does your dad also think the cable news, nightly news, and
radio news is also propaganda.”

“Well actually—”

“It doesn't matter. Do you have anyone taking care of you?
Where are your parents? Can you get home from here?”

Liam considered the many possible answers to those questions. He
decided to keep his response as simple as he could.

“I live with my grandma about thirty minutes from here.”
He pointed in the direction he was going to walk.

“You should take care of your grandma. Keep her from getting
sick.”

Liam looked again out the window and saw nothing to support this
woman's claims. He saw the crazy look in her eyes, the smeared
makeup, and her position in front of the door and absently wondered
if
she
presented a threat to him.

“My grandma is 104. She is probably sitting in her comfy
chair right now knitting or crocheting or whatever it is old ladies
do. I'm sure she is safe and sound—”

And then to placate his strange captor, “—but I'll go
check on her to be sure, thanks for the advice.”

He stepped back as if waiting for her to open the door.

She took the invitation, unlocked the door, and then held it open
for him to exit. Once he was through, she stepped out as well, locked
it and then raced to the lone car on the lot. Liam heard her lament
coming into work at all today. In moments she jumped in her car and
went speeding down the street, opposite of where he was heading.

Liam was left scratching his head.

He began walking, but was in no particular hurry. Even with the
freakishly distraught woman egging him home, he didn't see anything
out of the ordinary in the neighborhood; she was plainly crazy. He
put in his ear buds and was comforted by a rock song almost as old as
his father—Supertramp's
Take The Long Way Home
.

Long way home indeed. Too bad I can't go home.

Before letting the music further distract him, he thought of
Grandma. He had told the librarian the truth. He was absolutely
certain he knew what she was doing. The same thing she was always
doing. The same thing she'd probably be doing until the day she died.
Sitting in that dang chair knitting, quilting, or whatever the heck
she called it.

In Liam's mind, if she wasn't plugged into technology, even if she
was technically doing something—she might as well be doing
absolutely nothing.

3

Walking back to Grandma's was a downer for Liam. He knew it meant
the day would be spent in his dreary basement living quarters playing
on his laptop or just listening to music. By no means would he spend
the day on the same floor as Grandma, and risk having to come up with
things to say the whole time. Too much energy required. Just because
he was on loan to her this summer didn't mean he had to be in her
pocket the whole time.

Ha! On loan. That's what his father called it. More like a prison
sentence. A 15-year-old boy and his 104-year-old great-grandma had
nothing in common as far as he could tell. Computers. The internet.
Wi-Fi. Texting. Liam tried to explain all this to his
technology-challenged grandma—he dispensed with the “great”
in casual conversation—but she never seemed interested. Even
showing her videos of fuzzy bunnies and cute little kittens evoked a
“that's nice” but not much else in the way of
conversation. He ran out of ideas.

He returned again to “Where’s Liam?” She was a
breath of fresh air compared to the inquisitions of his mom and dad.
Where are you going? Who are you meeting there? Will there be girls?
Drinking? Drugs? And on and on and on. The constant nagging was part
of what drove him insane, and helped contribute to the massive fights
he'd been having with them. No doubt it helped expedite his
banishment to Grandma's for the summer. A cooling off period for
everyone involved. It had already been a few weeks and he still
hadn't communicated with the ‘rents. It was fine with him. His
biggest worry was that he'd have to see them both on his birthday in
a few weeks.

One day at a time.

His parents stopped paying for his monthly cell phone service as
punishment for one of his latest exploits—he couldn't remember
which—and they wouldn't even turn it back on for his time at
Grandma's. Talk about cruel and unusual. But once there, his grandma
insisted his phone be turned back on so she could communicate with
him using her standard telephone. Liam had to grudgingly thank her
for helping him regain such an important piece of his technological
repertoire. It linked him with Grandma, but more importantly it
linked him back up with his friends.

When they weren't discussing their games, he and his friends were
constantly talking about horror movies, TV series about zombies, and
similar supernatural thrillers. They all read the same kind of books too.
Liam was interested in lots of
genres of horror, but capitalized most of his non-game time reading
the classics on the end of the world;
The Stand
,
Earth
Abides
,
Alas Babylon
, and countless zombie thrillers. Of
course he and his friends visualized themselves as the heroes who
saved the world. They even played video games where they could be
those heroes. When they talked theoretically about what would happen
if the world did end, most of Liam's friends believed they would meet
the fall of the civilization standing up, facing the harsh new realm
with a cool and detached form of heroism. They would be the guys
taking out the zeds, zacks, or whatever. Chasing away the corrupt
government. Exterminating the barbarian cannibals. And they'd
naturally be coveted by buxom women!

Liam was filled with bravado in front of his friends, but
privately wasn't so sure he was ever destined to be more than an
extra when the movie version of the demise of society was filmed.
Most books packed in characters who defied all the odds to survive.
Some had quirky skills that just happened to be what was needed at
that particular moment—sort of like the old gardener who had
used a spade for fifty years and could miraculously detach zombies
from their heads with it. He knew that just didn't happen.

Liam recognized he would probably be an infected loser when the
end came. Books only show the heroes. Everyone else gets sketched
into the background as mindless automatons, though each one has a
story as rich and detailed as the hero. As humans succumb to
infection, either by malfeasance, poor clothing choices, or just dumb
luck, they instantly transferred from the “important”
column to the “afterthought” column in book after book.

The guy who thinks he can shoot a crowd of infected at point-blank
range.

The girl who tries to run away only to stereotypically trip and
fall.

The unsupervised child who innocently lets the undead into the
house.

THOSE guys.

I don't want to be THOSE GUYS!

At that moment Liam heard gunshots from somewhere to his right. He
yanked off his ear buds. He knew the sound from his time at the gun
range with his mom and dad. You just can't mistake the sound of
someone banging out round after round from a gun. Then a second and
third chain of rat-tat-tats started to hammer. Must be a bank robbery
or something, he thought.

At least I’d recognize the zombie uprising before some librarian.

Then a tornado siren began to howl – coming from the
direction of home. He could also hear another one starting up
somewhere behind him. Clear skies overhead. The morning kept getting
more and more weird.

Unperturbed, he decided to drop into the little corner market for
his daily infusion of whatever energy drink was on sale. It helped
him survive the tedium of living at Grandma's. He'd need an extra or
three if he'd have to hole up until tomorrow.

Walking in he could see a few patrons up near the checkout
counter. They were all huddled around a small radio. Liam immediately
recognized the voice of the President of the United States.

“—you must stay in your homes to survive this crisis.
I have authorized all governors to deploy the National Guard in their
home states for the duration of this event. Please listen to local
officials, who will follow this broadcast with instructions specific
to your area...”

Liam wasn't fully listening. He tended to ignore politics and
political “stuff” such as messages from the President.
His takeaway was that some disaster was happening somewhere and that
those
people should be doing something.

He walked to the refrigerated section to grab the drinks he
needed. The lights were off—all power was off in the store—but
the large front windows helped him see well enough. As he was staring
at the selection of beverages in the darkened coolers, he heard two
people arguing in the next aisle, a man and a woman.

“I told you the President was going to ruin this country!
But did you listen? Noooooo.”

In response, the woman made a sound with her mouth very much like
she was throwing up. She then said, “You never did like him.
Everyone hates him, that's why he can't get anything done for this
country. You'd probably like to see this country in ruins if it meant
he got the blame for it.”

He heard the words, but he wasn't really listening to what they
were saying. More political nonsense he didn't need to absorb. Of
more importance at the moment—what flavor energy drinks to
grab. He pulled out what he needed, and headed for the register.

He started to pay but the attendant would not peel herself away
from the radio. He held up a five to cover his drinks and slapped it
on the counter and walked away. It wasn't something he'd do any other
time, but he was getting frustrated at people acting so abnormal this
morning.

I don't have time for all this BS.

When he returned to the light of the day, he stood near the front
door as his eyes adjusted. He could see a man sitting in the
passenger seat of a car parked almost in front of the store, drinking
out of some kind of hard liquor bottle. The man turned and looked at
Liam with half-closed eyes, then went back to looking straight ahead
as if he were on a long drive. Liam felt embarrassed for the man, but
otherwise had no desire to engage or even acknowledge him. He began
walking toward home.

He hadn't gone a hundred feet when he heard, and then saw, an
orange sports car—a Barracuda he guessed—roaring down the
narrow two-lane street from behind him as if it were on the open
highway. The vehicle thundered by with enough force he was buffeted
by the strong turbulence.

What the hell?

It was going the same direction he was walking, so he jumped into
the street to see where it went. Several blocks down it hit its
breaks hard, squealing maniacally, then banked left down a side
street out of sight.