Zombies vs Polar Bears:
Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5
© 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 (Sept '16)
Post Apocalyptic Ponies
Post Apocalyptic Mustangs
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: Convoy
Chapter 2: Visitors
Chapter 3: Arizona
Chapter 4: Jason Hawkes
Chapter 5: Pulling Back
Chapter 6: River of Blood
Chapter 7: Forest Park
Chapter 8: The Naples Soldier
Chapter 9: White Flag
Chapter 10: Colorado
Chapter 11: V for Victoria
Chapter 12: Antique Tanks
Chapter 13: Warthogs, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!
Chapter 14: Illinois
Chapter 15: Polar Bears' Den
Chapter 16: Clarisse McClellan
Epilogue
Bonus: Prologue of Book 6 Zombies Ever After
Zombies Ever After: Prologue
Musings of an Author
About E.E. Isherwood
Other books by E.E. Isherwood
Connect with E.E. Isherwood
Prologue
“General. Please. Go on.”
General John Jasper sat in a room full of idiots. The town of Cairo, Illinois had become the centerpiece of middle America's efforts to protect the populace from the roving masses of infected citizens plaguing the countryside, but his ability to get town leaders to do anything useful for him had been spiraling downward almost as fast as the country's healthy population.
“As I was saying, the only way we're going to keep the sick people out of this town is if your civilians constantly watch the riverbanks. It doesn't take a degree from the War College to know that sick people are going to float down the rivers and end up on your shores.”
It had already happened, many times. The town had been lucky because there were a handful of go-getters who patrolled the levees and the graveyards of barges surrounding the peninsular town, looking for infiltrators. They fancied themselves “Zombie-Killers,” though he refused to utter that word in serious meetings like this one. Whatever they were, they weren't officially classified as zombies...
“But my people aren't soldiers. I can't have this town filled with guns. We'd have mass murder!”
John physically pushed back the sneer fighting for airtime on his face. The mayor of Cairo was an elderly and chronically sweat-soaked black man who insisted on dressing like a preacher—black pants, white shirt, and a ridiculous black suit jacket. It was 100 degrees outside, the humidity was an eternal 100 percent, and the meeting room doubled both. Yet he never took off his suit coat.
“And he gets everything wrong,” John thought. He wore his multicam field uniform and was sweating buckets too, but he was proud he didn't sweat like the other man. It was one small victory that reinforced the superiority he felt over all the men in the room, especially the mayor who seemed to not understand guns were the only things that kept them all alive.
“General, can you re-deploy some of your men to work inside the town with those volunteers?”
And then there was her.
He looked down at his notepad. Ms. Elsa Cantwell. Homeland Security.
Homeland my ass.
Generals have access to some of the best intelligence in the military. He knew the oxymoron was there, but he wasn't talking about satellites and spy planes. Most of his “intelligence” came from what would once have been called the water cooler. These days everything was done over water bottles. The government seemed to have an endless supply of them. Everywhere he went, people were anxious to share what they knew with him. No matter the branch. No matter the government bureaucracy. Everyone was searching for answers. He was just better at coaxing information from people as opposed to giving it.
And everyone said Homeland Security had been compromised. The problem was the department was so massive no one could pin down quite what part of it was broken. But he knew; it was all corrupted. If the woman sitting across the table from him was a drone from some backwater government department, he'd eat his Iraqi-sand-filled boots.
“As I've said over and over, I only have enough men and women to defend construction of the trench up north of town. I've had problems with...” Though his face was a mask, he had to work twice as hard as he finished his thought. “...soldiers walking off their posts.”
“General, I'm showing,” she looked down at her own notes, “approximately sixty five of your men have abandoned us. Do you have any means to acquire replacements?”
Though people on the ground were more than willing to sink ships with their loose lips, it drove him insane at how secretive everyone up his chain of command had become once the disaster broke out in America. He couldn't get a straight answer from his superiors—when they answered the phones—nor could any of his peers in the other branches. Cairo was swimming with one-stars right now, including an admiral of all the crazy things. And here was this civilian telling him how many men he'd lost.
The part that slaughtered his goat was that she was right. Dammit, he wasn't going to admit it.
“Ma'am, we shouldn't be talking about numbers here. The point is I don't have enough men to dig the trench, man the AFV's, and go beating the bushes with sticks. The mayor,” he pointed to the man, “has to do his part.”
“General, I understand your situation, what with your armored fighting vehicles and other toys. But maybe I can give you some news that will help with your allocation choices.” She pushed her chair and stood up. She had the attention of the ten men at the table, plus the numerous aides and hangers-on hovering on the fringes of the ancient conference room.
He took a mental snapshot of her. Not because she was an attractive blonde—though she was a model of a woman—but because she was a threat. He watched as she moved from her chair to the whiteboard on the wall. She moved with the grace of a lioness. She wore dark business slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt, both well-fitting and clean. Most people wore ill-fitting and dirty clothes they had to pull from the piles of refugee clothing. It had been two weeks since the emergency started—only someone with lots of resources could get clean clothes these days. Or she knew this was coming, and was prepared.
With a black marker, she drew on the white board. In moments she had lined a map of the states of Illinois and Missouri, along with the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
“This is us.” She drew a circle at Cairo. Which sat at the very southern tip of her rendition of Illinois. “Up the river is St. Louis.” She drew another dot on the left side of her map. “And up here is Chicago.” A third dot went in the northern part of Illinois. She then drew some other dots in various parts of the
map, followed by some arrows from those dots down to Cairo, which sat at the bottom of a V bracketed by the two big rivers.
“Does anyone know what this means?”
The mayor had been preaching about this since they'd met. “Yeah. The zombies are coming here,” he repeated from his previous warnings. The general saw this not as keen foresight, but outright panic. Unlike the mayor, he had used his time to bolster their chances, not hide in his office. Now the sweaty old timer was trying to cover his ass by pulling his soldiers back into town to protect him.
Elsa nodded. “Yes, Mayor Cartright, our cartographers have determined that as these, uh, zombies, leave the cities they naturally follow the contours of the land and the boundaries of the rivers. Since most of the big bridges over both these waterways have been blown, they will gravitate southward to this point.” Her pen made an emphatic squeal on their position.
“The zombies are coming here,” she reaffirmed. “But that's the bad news. The good news is this: the government is re-establishing itself in St. Louis.”
She seemed to wait for a reaction.
“Why St. Louis?” John probed.
“An excellent question, General. For the same reason this little town has kept you safe—St. Louis is surrounded on three sides by major rivers. The zombies have been migrating out of that city into the open countryside beyond. What's left is safe to reclaim and re-use. The fact that it's in the middle of the country was also valued by government planners.”
He wanted to ask why he wasn't informed of such plans by his own chain of command. As one of the ranking military men defending the civilian population in the Midwest, he should have been the first to know about a potential new base of operations. He also wanted to ask what would become of Cairo. Currently it was as safe a place as any for hundreds of miles. But he hated appearing out of the loop.
No one said anything.
“This is good news, people. The government is coming to rebuild and restore some semblance of peace after these weeks of chaos and uncertainty. The worst is over.”
Her eyes met his. She was unflinching. Challenging him to say something contrary. He held hers until they were both interrupted by a man standing along the wall behind him. When he spun around to see who was talking he was truly surprised.
“Miss. I don't believe we've met. I'm Rear Admiral Ray. I was on special assignment with the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon before things got bad. My sources say that St. Louis is not clear of infected, and in fact it has a higher than normal concentration of them. Also, are you aware of the activities of the Patriot Snowball group in that city?”
He had newfound respect for the navy man. He actually asked some salient questions. He was unaware of the patriot threat.
“Yes. My advance team is there right now. I should have a report soon on the precise status on the ground. We are aware of the threats.” She put down her marker and looked around at everyone. “This is going to happen, folks. The government in Washington is gone. Washington D.C. is gone. Most of what's left has to set up shop somewhere, and St. Louis is it. Your job is to support that effort.”
She looked at John. “Can I count on you, sir, to help these people survive until we can all get safely to St. Louis when the time is right?” She turned to the mayor. “You and your people are encouraged to join us, of course.”
The mayor nodded, but held a wide-eyed look of fear.
The general's head swam with competing directives. Dig the trench. Properly position the tanks. Plan the killboxes. And now, be ready to abandon it all, cross hostile territory, and end up in a bigger town with bigger problems. Though he swore an oath to protect the country, he wavered on what that actually meant here on the ground.
For now, he would play along.
“I can provide five Humvees, each with two-man crews to patrol on top of the levees.” Keeping them on the levees would give them instant access back to the main effort in the north, should they be needed.
“All right. See guys, we're getting somewhere now.” She smiled a fake smile. “We just have to play nice and help each other until the government gets back on its feet. You take care of it, and it will take care of you.”
The poison in her eyes reinforced his doubts about her motives. Cairo was safe. It was on a peninsula and was easily defensible thanks to his efforts digging fortifications on the landward-facing side. Only an idiot would abandon prime defensive real estate like this.
He wasn't going to let her, or anyone, ruin all that he had built.
Homeland Security may be in charge, but he controlled the firepower.
Chapter 1: Convoy
Sixteen days since the sirens.
Liam stared at the ripped envelope for a long time. His mother had given it to him yesterday and hinted that his father asked her not to read it until Liam saw it. He spent a long night trying to sleep in the noisy campground or—when sleep eluded him—trying to remember the words his father had said the past six months which might have given him clues as to what he knew and when he knew it.
In the morning he retreated to a private room inside the administration building to absorb the contents he was positive would give him the answers he sought. After reading it six or seven more times, he still wasn't sure what his father's dying words meant for him.
Shifting on his feet, he started again, at the beginning. It was written in his father's large-block printing, which drove him nuts. Seeing all-caps in his online lifestyle was reserved for shouting and online newbies. Liam winced at the notion his father loved to push his buttons, just as much as he enjoyed pushing his dad's. His misuse of the word libary was one example, but his father's text seemed to be one final button push, though it was without malice. It was as if his father enjoyed the back and forth they'd had. That made him feel even worse...
DEAR LIAM,
BEFORE I GET TO THE TRUTH, LET ME SAY I'M SORRY I CAN'T TELL YOU IN PERSON HOW PROUD I AM OF ALL YOU'VE DONE FOR GRANDMA MARTY, AND FOR YOURSELF SURVIVING THIS PLAGUE. GETTING HER OUT OF THE CITY, RESCUING HER FROM ELK MEADOW, AND GETTING HER BACK TO OUR HOME WERE FEATS ABOUT WHICH I STAND IN AWE.
NOW YOU'VE GONE OFF TO RESCUE HER ONE MORE TIME. I CAN'T SAY I'M HAPPY HOW YOU'VE LEFT YOUR MOTHER AND ME, BUT I GUESS I UNDERSTAND. YOU ARE RIDING A LUCKY STREAK. I HOPE YOU FIND HER—
He looked up, for the eighth time, at this exact spot. His dad never knew he did rescue grandma that last time. He found her in the Riverside Hotel downtown, held by Douglas Hayes and the National Internal Security agent Duchesne. His dad would have been proud he overcame so much to pull her out of that mess. The subsequent rescue and ride in the Osprey to Cairo, IL might have made him proud too, except that Liam suffered some head trauma rescuing a girl and wasn't really an active participant in the end.
He continued reading.
—AND BRING HER BACK TO YOUR MOTHER. SHE IS SPECIAL.
I KNOW YOU THINK I HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH ALL...THIS...OUTBREAK SITUATION. THAT I KNEW ABOUT IT AHEAD OF TIME AND SENT YOU TO LIVE WITH GRANDMA TO SOMEHOW PROTECT YOU. I TOLD YOU THE TRUTH BACK WHEN YOU ASKED ME. I HAD NO IDEA ZOMBIES WERE COMING. NO ONE COULD HAVE KNOWN THAT. BUT I KNEW SOMETHING WAS COMING. THE INCONVENIENT FACT YOU AND I WERE AT EACH OTHERS THROATS THIS PAST SPRING MADE IT EASY TO PUT YOU OUT OF HARM'S WAY. OR SO I THOUGHT HAHA.
Liam stopped here too, as he had done on previous readings. His father had sent him to live with Grandma Marty in the city, but that turned out to be a mistake—in Liam's mind—because it was much more dangerous for him. However, it probably saved Grandma's life. They got out of the city together. But he wondered how his father could have known he'd need guns. The two small pistols he'd stashed in Grandma's basement turned out to be instrumental in getting him to safety. Without weapons, he would have had to depend on the goodwill of others. That was something in short supply.
YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE ME IF I TOLD YOU IT WAS ALL RANDOM CHANCE. ABOUT SIX MONTHS AGO I GOT A CALL FROM YOUR GRANDMA ROSE. SHE WAS OUT WEST SOMEWHERE AND SAID SHE STUMBLE
D UPON SOMETHING AFTER SHE WON HER ELECTION THAT SHE NEEDED TO TELL SOMEONE SHE COULD TRUST. WHO COULD SHE TRUST MORE THAN HER OWN SON, RIGHT?
IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING YOUR MOM ALREADY KNOWS ALL THIS. BUT IT IS VERY DANGEROUS, AND HAS BEEN FOR A LONG TIME. IN FACT, GRANDMA ROSE LEARNED ABOUT THESE PEOPLE FROM HER HUSBAND. HE WAS KILLED, YOU KNOW, JUST FOR POKING AROUND BEHIND THE WRONG CURTAINS. THAT'S WHY ROSE JUMPED INTO POLITICS. SHE WANTED TO CARRY GRANDPA CLYDE'S DEATH BACK TO THEM. YOU KNOW HOW DRIVEN SHE WAS.
Liam wondered about the use of the word was. Did his father mean to say Grandma Rose was now dead? The rest of the letter gave no clue, and that was really the most disturbing part of the whole thing. That, and the fact his dad died shortly after he'd written this.
He looked around. He was inside a small room in the administration building of Camp Hope. The Boy Scout camp had become a home of sorts since he'd first found the place with Grandma weeks ago. The Scouts were able to keep the place organized and defended much longer than most other refuges he'd stumbled upon lately. And, to their credit, they'd survived Liam's attempt to get their place overrun by zombies.
Give yourself a break, Liam, he thought.
He didn't really believe he was responsible for causing the survivalist group to come in shooting, any more than he believed he directly caused the collapse of Busch Stadium. They were, at worst, accidents. But Camp Hope survived that assault and was still going strong. That made this camp the most secure place he knew about in the St. Louis area. A place he should feel safe.
He felt a chill, despite the intense July heat. Somewhere out there he imagined people were working on plans to kill him and his whole family. He'd seen the list with all the names. Now he was getting answers as to why his name was on that list. It all tied back to his Grandma Rose.
ME? I THINK MOTHER NATURE IS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF ME. MY BROKEN LEG HURTS BEYOND WORDS—WHY DO YOU THINK I'M SHOUTING AT YOU HAHA. THERE ARE NO MEDICATIONS LEFT AND I'M TOO WEAK TO GO OUT LOOKING FOR ANY. NO ONE KNOWS WHERE TO GO ANYWAY. THIS MAY BE THE END OF THE BEGINNING, LIAM. NOW THINGS ARE GOING TO GET HARD.
Zombies vs Polar Bears: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 5 Page 1
