“Fine. We're probably going to the same spot anyway. Cairo.”
“Oh no. That's not how it works. You ship-stealing kids and your soccer mom friend here are going to get out right here and now. We've been tracking you since yesterday. We saw you take the boat from up on the cliffs. Only I didn't know it was you, per se. But now it makes perfect sense. Trick us into thinking you were going down into the pit, then steal the boat. A nice little racket you got there.”
The blonde haired, middle aged man in the other boat was someone Liam recognized, too. Jason Hawkes. He'd been told over the secure text link down in the mine that he should find Mr. Hawkes and that he could trust him. That he knew his father. Did that also mean he knew his mother?
He carefully observed Jason as he tied off his boat and boarded the Football. If he knew his mother, he was very smart about hiding it. His mom didn't show any recognition either.
What's happening to me? I don't trust my own mother?
He snapped himself out of it.
“Fine. Can you take my mom? She had no part in stealing the boat.”
“Liam, no. I'll stay with you.”
“No! Someone has to get back to Grandma and watch over her. If it isn't us, then it has to be you.”
“Mr. Hawkes, I believe you knew my father. Jerry Peters? Will you please take my mother downriver with you?”
It was a desperate play, but the captain looked ready to run aground and push him onto shore. They were already closing the short distance to the bank.
“Jerry Peters?” He seemed to study his feet. “I don't recall anyone by that name. Where did he work?”
“We don't have time to play hard to get, sir. My dad is dead. He died of an infection to his leg.”
“I'm sorry to hear that, kid. But I don't know of any Jerry Peters.”
The hull of the boat gently struck the rocky shore. The captain made good on his threat to put them off the boat. All that was left was the old heave ho. Or maybe a plank.
“There you go, kids. Now get out. I'll take one of these guns as payment for my trouble.” He'd grabbed one of his dad's AKs, which stoked a deep resentment inside Liam. That was his dad's gun.
The captain tossed the other two guns on shore. At least he'd left them with something to defend themselves. Plus they weren't all that far from Camp Hope. But, this was possibly the last boat capable of making it back to Grandma.
Victoria and his mom were already ashore. The gun pointed at his back suggested he join them.
He decided to take one last crack at the man.
“I received a message in the mine. It was from someone watching over me there. She said I needed to escape the mine and report to you. That you knew my dad. That you were part of the Patriot Snowball.” That last part was a white lie, but it all added up. Who else would his dad work with? Most definitely not the NIS.
His heart stopped beating for a moment.
Could he?
Impossible, or just improbable?
“Patriot Snowball? You hear that Cap'n? These folks think we're part of some rebellious group of traitors against fellow Americans. What do you say to that?”
The captain laughed. Liam didn't know why. Blue accused him of running guns up and down the river for the Patriots. Surely he wasn't doing that for the government. They didn't need the help.
But what if they were with the NIS? Did they need the help?
He felt the barrel of the gun in his back. Things had taken a turn toward the serious. His mom was edging her way toward her gun. He could see where this could potentially go.
The NIS? It was incredibly far-fetched.
“OK, not Patriots then. Are you with the National Internal Security?”
The captain, behind him, whispered in his ear. “You know, if anyone knows that secret they are ordered by NIS field guides to kill that person on sight.”
Oh God. This is it.
His mom was close to her gun, but there's no way she could get to it while the barrel of the captain's gun was drilling into his own back.
He tried to think it through.
Maybe if he dived sideways…
“Lucky for you, you had it right the first time. I'm just jackin' with ya, anyway. You seem to be wound tighter than a ship's anchor.”
The gun barrel dropped.
By some miracle, his mom had reached down and aimed the gun toward Jason. He responded by raising his hands.
“We're all friends here. We're all Polar Bears,” the captain said in a comforting voice.
3
“Sorry about that, Liam. I had to be sure you weren't a spy for the NIS. They have an uncanny ability to be everywhere and see everything.”
“So you don't know my mom?”
“Nope. Though I wish I did.” Jason held his hand out to help Lana back in the boat—but he froze.
Liam peered out to where the man was looking, but saw nothing.
“What is—”
“Shh.”
He made as if to pull the girls into the boat, but everyone stopped.
A strong smell enveloped them. It arrived on a slight breeze. To Liam it reminded him of pancakes and syrup, but it also contained a sour smell, like roots of tree.
The smell made his head spin. He fell to one knee, unsure what caused it. His mom retched, while Jason took several steps backward, toward the main cabin. Liam heard a splash of water.
“Victoria? Where are you?” After he'd said it, he couldn't remember if he said it out loud, or merely thought it. Victoria was still on the shore, he decided.
With it.
He could see the zombie standing behind a nearby cottonwood tree. He was hard to make out because he wore camouflage BDUs. Liam had gotten better about identifying branches of service—the zombie was an ex-Marine.
But Liam couldn't see straight.
The zombie took a few steps in his direction, as if testing the terrain. Waiting for a gunshot, or a sword blade. When none came, it continued to move closer.
“Have to run.” He spoke in a calm tone to Jason, who was crumpled on the floor near the cabin.
The zombie took its time. Liam, through the haze in his brain, accepted he was looking at something new. And, as if to prove it, the zombie began climbing a large tree. The branches hung low over the boat. It was a creative, if unnecessary, way for it to board the vessel.
“Have to run,” he repeated to himself.
The zombie moved fast into the tree. He began to weave through the middle branches as it searched for the one that was directly above Lucy's Football.
It's that one, you stupid zombie.
But it wasn't totally stupid. Through the fog he recognized that simple fact.
From deep in his memory he searched for a parallel in his zombie lore. A smart zombie? Then it isn't a zombie at all, is it? But zombies had to have some intelligence; enough to identify food. Even a snake, with its tiny brain, was able to sneak up on its prey. A snail, with barely the ability to move, was smart enough to find food. And now this zombie, supposedly dumber than most boxes of hammers, had the ability to stand upright, crawl up a tree, and plot a simple course to prey.
And it had something else. Liam couldn't put his finger on it, though he knew it should be obvious.
More splashes of water.
In his memory he summoned an image of a zombie in a pink nightgown.
He laughed inwardly. “Yeah, that was the time I lost myself and declared my love for a zombie version of Victoria. That thing made me lose my mind.”
Lose my mind.
The echo in his head was real.
Lose…
It was making him lose it again. He had lost it.
“The smell. The smell is the zombie!”
He called out, but no one seemed to care. The zombie had found the correct path and was close to finding its way down the branch, where it would soon jump on board.
On his hands and knees he slunk into the cabin. The throttle was right there. The motors wer
e still idling.
The captain still needs to toss us ashore.
He tried to catch sight of the zombie up in the tree, but he couldn't see it. He reached for the controls.
With great force he jammed the throttle in reverse, and the motors went from zero to reverse. The powerful propellers grabbed the water and jerked the whole boat backward. The zombie had timed it as best it could, but the surprise move by Liam seemingly threw it off its game. It fell from the tree and banged heavily off the front end of the boat, then splashed into the water.
The fog quickly wore off. Liam caught the motors again and clutched them into forward to keep from running backward into the far shore. He did his best to straighten the boat so he could see what was happening. He noted Jason was still on the floor near the front. Victoria was on shore, on her back.
The zombie was in the water—swimming.
“Victoria! Move!”
And his mother was there, too. She was on the ground as well, hunched over from getting sick.
He stepped forward to get a better view of the water. He looked everywhere for a gun, but his mom and Victoria were with their guns, though they didn't look to be in any condition to use them. The captain had taken an AK, but the captain wasn't anywhere he could see.
“Captain?”
He glanced to the rear deck, but the old sea dog wasn't out there. He wasn't on the boat.
It took a few frantic seconds to spy him, but it was obvious once he'd found him in the water. He was madly thrashing away fifty yards down the river.
And half the distance between the captain and the boat, he saw the zombie. It swam, though not very well.
Liam looked at the girls on the bank and decided to take a chance. If this new alpha-level zombie doubled back, he would use the boat to chase him. The only gun left on board was the one currently wrapped around Jason. Maybe the fresh air would help him recover from...the scent of the thing.
He spun the boat in the direction he needed to go, and gunned it.
4
Liam had made his decision in record time. He got the boat moving in the right direction and made no discernible mistakes. Yet he still didn't reach the zombie before it managed to get a hand on the tiring captain.
He laid off the motors, unable to get any closer for fear of hitting both the swimming figures.
Do something!
With the engines back in idle, the boat floated by the struggling form of the captain, now besieged by this new type of zombie. Liam ran to Jason to try to get his AR free of its entanglement.
“Jason! I need help. Now!” He screamed at the man, hoping to break the spell. But Jason looked into the distance, like he was seeing something horrible coming for him.
He ran to the captain's toolbox. Days ago he'd pulled out a couple of heavy tools for the girls to use as weapons. The seconds ticked off as he dug for what he needed.
“You can't go in the water, Liam,” a scared voice called out from his mind. “It'll drown you.”
He grabbed a hammer and a heavy pipe wrench. Neither was appropriate for what he needed...and then he saw the right tool. He threw down the others and pulled out the much lighter one. He ran back to Jason, the seconds continued to roll, and he used the box cutter to snip through Jason's rifle sling. It allowed him to pull the rifle away from the still-reeling man.
He struggled to his feet. Tried to find the zombie and the captain, but it took fifteen seconds. The captain popped up, gasping for breath, twenty feet downriver. He aimed the rifle, tripped off the safety, and hoped to find his target.
“Oh God,” cried the captain. He rolled on his back, calling out in pain.
“Where is it?” Liam shouted.
“Help me,” was the only reply. And he sounded weak.
Liam searched in futility. If the zombie had drowned—if that were possible—would it drag along the bottom, or float to the top? If there was no air in the lungs, wouldn't it go down? He couldn't say for sure.
He returned to the steering wheel and gingerly moved the boat closer to the captain. Jason was snapping out of it, too, but he still wasn't doing more than sitting up.
“Captain, you have to climb aboard.”
Liam tossed him a rope tied to a small white buoy. That allowed him to hold on until Jason sobered up enough to pull him inside. With an eye on the river, Liam returned to his mom and Victoria, who were both standing in anticipation of his arrival. Both had their rifles in hand.
They wasted no time talking. When the boat touched the shore, both women jumped in and Liam backed into the water.
“What the hell was that thing?” Lana asked, breathlessly.
“Some kind of alpha zombie,” Liam responded, thinking of his own naming convention for it.
The captain cried out in pain. Jason had made him comfortable near the rear door to the cabin. Liam was in that exact spot, days ago. Also after a run in with zombies.
“The bastard got me. He scratched my arm all to hell.”
“Did he bite you?”
“No, I kept him busy. But he dug into me pretty good.” His arm was a bloody mess near the shoulder. It didn't look like a bite, at least.
The captain knew his boat. He directed Liam to the medical kit, his mom patched him up, and in ten minutes the captain was pushing the motors as fast as they'd go on the tight river.
The five of them barely fit in the cabin, but no one wanted to be out in the open, even though it was silly to think of anything catching them at thirty miles an hour on the water.
In no time they reached the end of the Meramec River. A mangled bridge lay half in the water. Liam recognized it as “his” bridge. The one he'd crossed on that first day. The train engine was supposed to be parked nearby, but it had been taken into the underground cavern with all the tanks in it. The bridge was familiar, but foreign. Lots of wood had floated down the river and gotten tangled up in the metal trusswork riding near the surface of the water.
The captain surprised them all by dropping from breakneck speed to a full stop just past the bridge.
“Everyone out!” He shouted. “Go with Jason.”
“Wait, what?” Liam replied.
“You can't toss us out. We have to get to Cairo.”
“No one's going to Cairo, but me.” He laughed an unhealthy laugh. “I'm injured, folks. I don't know what that thing was, but it messed me up. I can feel it in my veins. I'm not taking no for an answer.” He stood and looked at them. “Jason needs to get back to his people. He only offered to help me get my boat back. I have it. I'm gone.”
Liam expected Jason to protest, but he did not.
“Captain, please. I have to get to my Grandma.”
He tossed Liam a notepad with a pencil attached. “Write her vitals here. I'll try to get this to her. Just after they give me medical treatment.”
It made sense. Cairo had the only working medical facility—more of a tent—that he'd seen since the sirens. His gamble was they'd have something to treat whatever it was he caught. He looked horrible, but without a bite, the bleeding should stop soon and he should be fine. A note was better than nothing.
He scribbled down a short note to Grandma, described her, and then set the notepad on the passenger's seat.
“Please get this to her.”
“I'll try, son. Now get the hell off my boat and out of my life.”
The boat moved forward to the shore, but Jason was in the back near a floor board that had bounced up during the high-speed cruising. He had pulled up the decking and smiled over what was beneath him.
“Well, I wish I'd known that was there when I needed it,” Liam remarked.
The ship captain was a gun runner after all. He saw that his stash had been found.
“Take what you want. I don't care anymore. It belongs to the Snowballers, anyway.”
5
Standing on the shore with his dad's AK-47 again, Liam watched the captain throttle up and out of his life, at least for now. He took in the surroundings,
piecing it together from the brief time he was here last. The large power plant sat idle. Large piles of coal stood vigil nearby...waiting for someone to shovel them onto the conveyor belt going into the facility. No one came out, though he recalled there being some survivors inside back then.
“We need to move. I don't know what that thing was, but it might be swimming down the river to this point. I say we get gone before it arrives.”
With some trepidation, Liam turned his back on the river. For hundreds of yards he turned around to see if they were being followed. They found the railroad tracks huddled at the base of the tall bluff face which ran along this section of the river. Even then, he turned around every so often, sure they were being followed by the strange new creature.
“Liam, you can relax. There's nothing back there.” His mom sounded comforting, but he couldn't take her at her word this time.
“Yeah, we can see all the way back there on these tracks. It can't sneak up on us,” Victoria added.
But the sick-smelling aroma hung in his nostrils as they walked. It could be above them on the bluffs—
How could it have climbed that high?
Or below them hiding in the woods below the railroad grade—
How could it have kept up with the boat going thirty miles per hour?
Or, mystery of mysteries, maybe it was already in front of them—
Now you're being crazy.
Liam didn't know.
“I just want to get somewhere we have four walls around us.” The alpha zombie had deeply affected him. Its ability to project, and then combine skills of other zombies he'd had the misfortune to encounter, well, it made him appreciate how stupid zombies really were. Often in the books they were slow, plodding creatures. Sometimes they were fast, but still pretty dumb. The one behind them—he was sure it was still pursuing them—had displayed climbing skills and swimming skills along with whatever aromatic concoction it emitted. What if there were others who could run? Hell, maybe that one could, but never had the chance.
No, it couldn't run he decided. That's why it didn't march directly for them. It was smart enough to recognize the weakness was above. If it could have run, the whole thing would already be over and he himself would now be walking around looking for the blood of more victims.
Since the Sirens: Zombie's 2nd Bite Edition: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Books 4-6 Page 31
