Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Siren Songs (14 page)

Phil just stood there, staring out.

Liam considered yelling for her to stop, but found it wouldn't
come out. It was already over. The pair of women were down on the
floor again, unaware who was shooting.

Phil recovered just as Mel finished the grisly business. “Mel
just solved the problem for us. It looks like we take no prisoners.”

Liam couldn't tell if he was saying it with regret or pride.

Grandma was laying on her back, but in the dim light of the ever
increasing conflagration across the street, Liam saw her make the
sign of the cross. He wondered if she was praying for the deceased on
the lawn, the soul of the executioner, or those in this room who now
lived in an increasingly desperate world.

While looking out the window, Liam noticed movement near Poole's
place across the street. A couple of men were standing in the
shadows, looking toward Liam's house. Studying what went down? He
couldn't really tell. Together they ran off into the dark of the
woods over there.

Liam wondered if they just set the tone for the days ahead?

Out loud he said, “Pray for us all, Grandma.”

2

While they were still alone in the living room, Liam, Victoria,
Marty and Phil were trying to answer the question whether what they
just witnessed was necessary or wrong. In the few minutes they'd been
hashing it over, no consensus emerged.

Grandma had the only answer they could all agree upon. “Maybe
nothing is as simple as good and evil anymore. There is simply life
or death.”

Liam recalled an earlier conversation with Victoria about living
in a world where good people were forced to do bad things, but now he
was less sure he could identify what those bad things might be.
Staying alive and not worrying about those men searching them out to
kill them later seemed pretty “good” in his book.

They were just about to join Melissa out on the driveway when they
saw people running down the street, from their left to their right as
they looked out the front window. A few were screaming wildly.

“What now?” Phil looked out the wide open window to
see if he could see anything to explain the commotion. A few more
people were running by, but nothing obvious was behind them.

“We better collect our people.” He yelled for Melissa
to come inside.

Liam noticed there were fewer people in his yard now. No surprise
there. The shootout had sent people scattering for safer areas.
Several refugee bodies were left lying in the yard, none of them
moving. Maybe a dozen or so people were still milling around, mostly
on the side of the yard away from the driveway.

Liam moved back into the kitchen and was reminded of all the kids
that had come through his door.

Melissa came in quickly from the garage, trailed by several of her
shooters. She spoke to the parents in the kitchen, most of whom were
carrying rifles slung over their shoulders. “Thank you for
defending this house. I had no idea we'd be attacked so soon after
approaching you guys, but I'm so glad we were able to work together.”
Many of the parents stood quietly with their children, looking at
Mel.

She sensed the uncomfortable atmosphere and guessed at their
reasoning. “I know it seems harsh to kill those men, but trust
me there was no other way. The police aren't coming. We can't keep
them prisoner forever. If we turned them loose today, they'd be back
after us tomorrow to kill me; to kill your children. You saw how they
killed that man. They were coming here to do that to all of us. I did
what I had to do to protect these kids.” She motioned with her
hands, sweeping all the kids in the room. “Things are different
now. You have to recognize that if you want to keep you and your
families alive in this chaos.”

It seemed to settle the room somewhat, though Liam was troubled
that he was adjusting to what she did almost without question. His
brain had gone too long without sleep so he attributed his newfound
acceptance of the changing moral climate to exhaustion.

He spoke up. “We have a new problem. People are running down
the street as if something is chasing them. It could mean more bad
guys are up the hill, but they aren't stopping to ask for help so
it's more likely they are running from zomb—the infected.”

He didn't like to use
that
word in the company of kids.

“But we don't know anything for sure.”

He knew these folks had just saved his house, and they did it to
protect their own kids. He couldn't very well ask them to go back out
on the lawn. “Please make yourselves comfortable. This is my
home, but you're welcome to plop your kids down anywhere you feel
safe. I recommend the basement in case there's more shooting, but we
don't have any doors down there so if you want to get out of the
house in a hurry you may want to stay on this floor.”

Always think of escape.

“Just be ready with your guns.”

He had put his own pistol back in his waistband. He'd have to see
if he could scare up another proper holster for it. Victoria had the
one his dad gave him. He also considered getting one of his dad's
guns.

When he went back into the front room, the situation on the street
had already snowballed. Now there were tons of people running, and
the source of their fright was evident by the shambling infected
moving quickly down the street. Many of the zombies reached Poole's
house and halted. They seemed agitated—or entertained—by
the fire, even as they moved themselves too close to it. Some were
catching their clothes and hair on fire as their numbers increased.
More were coming.

No one was left on the front lawn. A few of the last people had
come into Liam's house, along with most of the kids and their
parents, but most of the survivors on his lawn had taken off running
during the gunfight and never returned. The wave of fleeing people
from up the street swept away any stragglers.

“Should we be running?” Liam really wanted to know.

In a quiet voice, Phil replied, “I think we're better off
here for now. We have lots of ammo and a good defensive position. We
can't all get in a car and drive off and leave our—your
house—with all its belongings. We have too many young and old.
I think as long as we're quiet they may focus on the people running
down the street and that fire over there.”

“What happens at daybreak?” Victoria had a good point.
Sunrise was only a couple hours away.

“I guess we'll burn one bridge at a time.”

It was really all they could do. Liam felt bad for the people
running outside, but there was nothing anyone inside the house could
do for them. The fire was giving survivors some time to escape,
though he knew the zombies were relentless.

They had almost begun to relax. Then, BANG! A gunshot from the
kitchen.

Liam ran to the kitchen, and was dismayed to see his sliding glass
back door had been blown to smithereens. A man with a rifle was still
pointing it out the open space. Many of the kids had begun crying and
the parents were herding them in various directions away from the
blown door.

Another zombie poked around the corner and the man expended
another round in it. The shock sent the kids further into hysteria,
and even Liam felt his legs quiver a little. There was nothing to
stop the zombies from walking in his wide-open back door.

3

After the second zombie was put down, no others showed up, so Liam
chanced a look out back. It was difficult to see much with the weird
shadows being thrown by the fire across the street, but his backyard
appeared empty of any infected.

“We're good for now. We need to secure this door.”

The kitchen table was a rectangle, so they turned it sideways and
set it against space where they back door had previously been. They
laid it longways, so they could shoot over the top. But he'd seen
what happens when too many dead stack up. If they swarmed his back
door, he knew they'd eventually create so many fallen bodies the
others would simply climb over them and into the kitchen. It all
depended on how much ammo they had.

Lots.

Victoria came into the kitchen.

“Victoria, would you mind taking Grandma downstairs along
with all the kids? Then come back up. We'll guard this door
together.”

Marty was standing in the hallway, so heard her name. “Liam,
don't you do anything silly now. I'm just an old woman. If things get
bad you get all these people to safety.”

“I'll be safe. I promise. We're going to protect you all.”

Now Phil and Melissa were in the kitchen. It wasn't long before
Victoria returned from her chores. They were standing in the open
space where the table had been.

Phil was the first to speak. “I think we can defend this
house against almost any number of zombies, at least in the short
term. If we kill enough of them at the entrances, they won't be able
to get in the house at all. But, if we kill a massive quantity of
zombies we may have other problems with so many decaying bodies so
close to us. While shooting an infinite number of them appeals to my
baser side, we have to consider the long-term implications of killing
indiscriminately.”

Liam sensed something between Melissa and Phil in that statement,
but he wasn't sure what it might be.

“For now all we can do is lay low and hope the gunshots
didn't attract more of those things. There are so many guns going off
right now it might not have been noticed.”

Though his ears were ringing madly, Liam could hear guns up and
down the street. How many of the infected were out in the darkness?

The plan was to keep the kids and the older folks down in the
basement, and those with guns would stay on the main floor. They
decided the best course of action was to be silent and hope the
zombies passed them by. Killing zombies is easy, but cleaning up the
dead would probably ruin the small house forever. They needed the
infected to keep on moving down the street.

For the couple hours until dawn, the fire across the street kept
most of the zombies occupied. Liam was able clean up, get some food,
and get some sleep in the front room while Phil kept watch out the
front, and Victoria and the others kept watch out back. He felt far
from refreshed, but any sleep was better then none.

“The infected are beginning to break up across the street.”

When Liam looked out the front he was shocked to see so many
standing there. He estimated there were hundreds of them surrounding
the much-reduced fire in Poole's former house. The periphery of the
zombie horde was peeling off to search for new distractions. Liam
knew what that meant.

There were a few zombies wandering around his own yard. He
suspected they were in back too. Even though it was a warm June
morning, he shivered at the sight of so many horribly disfigured and
bloody people standing so close to his home. In all the books he'd
read on zombies, he never once pictured them here on his street.

What did I think would happen?

Liam felt he should have anticipated they would eventually find
his sanctuary. Just from what he could see, there were a couple dozen
wandering his way. Could they sense there were people close to them?
Could they smell them? Were they hearing something inside the house?

Trouble always seems to find me.

4

Once again, Marty was asleep. Had she known she would return to
her dream world and see her husband's doppelganger, she probably
would have tried to stay awake. He always brought portents of
trouble. Or maybe everything which happened to them now was bad; it
wasn't just him.

This dream found Marty and Al on a dark forest road, walking
together. The great pines on each side blocked out the stars, though
one or two winked at her from between the big branches.

“Hello Marty. After our last meeting I was afraid what I
showed you was too much for you to endure. I know it was one of your
darkest emotions. I'm sorry for that. But I'm pleased to see we are
here now. This is just as important to witness as was Liam's green
car on the bridge. We're coming to it up ahead.”

Rather than argue, Marty simply looked where he told her to look
and walked where he told her to walk.

“Nothing to say, my dear?”

Marty was tempted to give him the silent treatment. It was
something she rarely did with her real husband, so it didn't feel
right doing it to this simulation of him, but his riddles and
ill-tidings were wearing on her. The last vision he showed her of
Victoria was madness. In the end, it was her indecision which passed
for her silence.

“Fair enough. For now we'll just walk. We have only a short
way to go. But I want you to know you are far exceeding my hopes for
you. When I first became aware of you I admit I had my
reservations—even knowing your potential—because of your
age. But it wasn't long before I saw you in action with your Liam to
know you have more depth than even I could see. Your perseverance
after seeing Victoria die was the clincher. Now I'm confident you'll
be able to do what I'd hoped.”

She couldn't resist such a juicy statement.

“And what exactly did you hope I'd do?”

“Find the cure, of course! As I've said before, your first
task is to assemble your team in this place to properly wage the kind
of sustained battle you must endure to see this to the end. We are
doing this in a series of small steps, much like a computer program
if I might use but one allusion, to achieve the desired result.”

“You know, don't you? You speak of computers. Of all the
people on Earth you could have selected—” She walked
while inhaling deeply, “I'm probably the only person on Earth
who has never touched a computer. There have to be lots of people
with computers near the source of the plague who could do a better
job than me at stopping it? Soldiers. Scientists. Heck, even someone
a little younger. Why didn't you take your magic show to one of
them?”